Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

BERARS.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for India the present situation in the negotiations which have been taking place between the Government of India and the Government of the Nizam of Hyderabad as to the position that the Berars would occupy under a federal constitution; what changes do these negotiations involve in the present status of this territory; and is the change dependent on his adherence to the proposed All-India federation?

The SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Sir Samuel Hoare): A provisional agreement has been reached with His Exalted Highness the Nizam as to the constitutional position of the Berars in the event of the establishment of Autonomous Provinces and a Federation. This question, which is separate from that of the adherence of Hyderabad proper to a Federation, arises out of the unusual and complicated status of the Berars. The practical effect of the agreement is that the method of governing the Berars in conjunction with the Central Provinces would be changed only to the extent necessary to bring it into line with the proposed political developments in other parts of India. The ratification of the agreement with the Nizam must naturally depend upon the decision of Parliament as to the scheme as a whole.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Will my right hon. Friend say if it is the case that the proposals that have been made will add to the prestige or position of His Exalted Highness in regard to the Berars?

Sir S. HOARE: It is difficult to give a general answer to a question of that kind. The negotiation is a complicated
one, covering a number of points, but my Noble Friend may rest assured that the Joint Select Committee are considering all those points.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Are we to understand that the negotiations with the Berars are subject to what the Committee recommend?

Sir S. HOARE: I have said that in regard to certain aspects of the case, the ultimate decision must be with Parliament.

HYDERABAD RESIDENCY BAZAAR.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether His Majesty's Government are considering the restitution to the Nizam of Hyderabad of the area known as the Residency Bazaar and of the city of Secunderabad?

Sir S. HOARE: The area hitherto known as the Hyderabad Residency Bazaar, with the exception of the Residency and its grounds, was restored to His Exalted Highness the Nizam in May last. No change as regards the Cantonment of Secunderabad is proposed.

BANGALORE.

Duchess of ATHOLL: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for India what agreement has been reached with the Maharaja of Mysore in regard to the proposed cession of the residency civil stations and British cantonments at Bangalore; and is the cession dependent on the adherence of the Maharaja to the proposed All-India federation?

Sir S. HOARE: I am not yet in a position to add anything to the statements which I made on 1st May last, in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wycombe (Sir A. Knox).

Duchess of ATHOLL: Are we to understand again that these negotiations with the Maharajah of Mysore are subject to the decision of Parliament in regard to the setting up of the proposed Federation?

Sir S. HOARE: I would not like to exclude the possibility of dealing with these cases independently, but, speaking generally, I would say that they come within the constitutional problem which the Joint Committee are considering, and
to that extent the decision will be subject to the decision eventually taken by Parliament.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Has the right hon. Gentleman received a memorandum expressing the anxiety of traders and others in Bangalore?

Sir S. HOARE: I do not think that I have received such a memorandum, but these questions are, I know, being taken into account by the Resident in the negotiation which is now going on between him and the Maharajah.

EARTHQUAKE.

Sir H. CROFT: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the success of the police force in dealing with the crisis caused by the earthquake at Muzzafarpur; and whether, for any reason, the native police, including officers, were unable to fulfil their duties?

Sir S. HOARE: So far as my information goes, the police at Muzzafarpur discharged most efficiently the responsibilities placed on them by the earthquake, and no case has come to my notice in which any grade failed to fulfil its duties. I should like to take this opportunity to add, to the many tributes already paid in India, my appreciation of the work done under terrible strain, by the officers of all ranks and of all departments throughout the stricken area.

Mr. ANNESLEY SOMERVILLE: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether any relief will be afforded to the British planters in Bihar, many of whom have been ruined by the earthquake?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, Sir. I am sending my hon. Friend a statement made by a member of the Bihar and Orissa Executive Council on the subject.

Mr. SOMERVILLE: Does that answer relate to the destruction of their bungalows and mills?

Sir S. HOARE: I think that I had better send a statement to my hon. Friend. If he wants any further information, I will try to obtain it for him.

PRISONERS (CALCUTTA).

Mr. MAXTON: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that a number of political prisoners have been on hunger strike since 15th February in the Alipore Central Gaol, Calcutta; whether he will state the number of prisoners on hunger strike, the offence with which these prisoners have been charged, and the nature of the demands which they have put forward; and whether he will inform the House as to their present physical condition?

Sir S. HOARE: I have already asked the Government of India for a report, and will communicate with the hon. Member directly I receive it.

Mr. LIDDALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman inform the House whether this hunger strike is voluntary, and, if so, what responsibility can be attached to the Government of India or to His Majesty's Government for the physical condition of the strikers?

Sir S. HOARE: I had better await the report before I make a statement to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

BOXER INDEMNITY FUND (LOAN).

Mr. RANKIN: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it will be a condition of the approval of the £1,500,000 loan toy the British Boxer Indemnity Fund for the purpose of completing the railway between Canton and Hankow, that all railway material required to be imported therefor shall, so far as possible, be of British manufacture?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir John Simon): I understand that the Board of Trustees have under consideration a proposal to raise a loan secured on the half of the British share of the Boxer Indemnity instalments paid to the board in accordance with the terms of the China Indemnity (Application) Act, 1931. The proceeds of the loan would be expended on construction work in connection with the Canton-Hankow Railway in China, and not on foreign material, but the carrying out of this work would subsequently result in large orders for railway material and equipment being placed
in this country by the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission in London. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been consulted on the matter, and in the special circumstances he has decided to offer no objection to the proposed sterling loan to be raised in Shanghai.

SITUATION.

Sir JOHN WARD LAW-MILNE: 15.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any report from His Majesty's Legation at Peking on present conditions in North China, particularly in the neutral zone South of the Great Wall and in the province of Charhar; and whether he is able to state by whom the passes in the Great-Wall are now held?

Sir J. SIMON: According to reports received from His Majesty's Legation, the situation in North China and Charhar Province has during the last few months remained generally peaceful. The neutral zone was disturbed at the end of December by the incursion of a small number of rebellious Chinese troops. The revolt, however, never assumed serious proportions and by early in January conditions were once more normal, being governed by the conditions of the armistice of the 31st May last. So far as I am aware, the passes in the Great Wall still remain in Japanese occupation.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Is the statement correct that there has been a more or less mutually satisfactory arrangement come to between the Chinese and Japanese Governments?

Sir J. SIMON: I think that that must be so, because my information is that the situation is not changed, and that the conditions of the armistice of 31st May last are being observed.

FOREIGN COUNTRIES (BRITISH INVESTORS).

Sir PARK GOFF: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foregin Affairs whether since 14th February, 1934, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Rumania have completed payment to British holders of Hungarian securities under the protocol of Innsbruck and the Prague and Paris arrangements; and, if not, will he now make representations to the Governments concerned?

Sir J. SIMON: As far as I am aware, the answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. With regard to the second part, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer returned to my hon. Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett) on the 14th February.

Sir P. GOFF: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Greek Government is seeking a foreign loan to be expended upon equipment for the Peloponnesus Railway; and will he, in view of the treatment of British investors in Greek loans, make it clear to the Greek Government that the embargo upon the public issue here of Greek loans will be continued and that a Greek loan placed here privately will not be a negotiable instrument?

Sir J. SIMON: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part therefore does not arise.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in order to prevent misunderstanding, he will, before Dr. Aranha, the Brazilian Minister of Finance, starts for London to negotiate with the issuing houses which acted as agents for the sale in Britain of the now-defaulted Brazilian bonds, inform the Brazilian Government that the unilateral decree of default imposed upon the British creditors of Brazil is not regarded by His Majesty's Government as a satisfactory arrangement?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Eden): I understand that the Brazilian Minister of Finance does not intend to visit this country as suggested in the right hon. Gentleman's question, and the second part of the question does not therefore arise.

RUSSIA (BRITISH IMMIGRANTS).

Mr. BATEMAN: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many British subjects have emigrated to Russia (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) during the last two years?

Sir J. SIMON: I regret that no figures are available.

Mr. BATEMAN: Would the Foreign Secretary give consideration in the near future as to whether a grant could be given to each constituency, or to any
hon. Member, to enable them to send out to Russia men desiring to go there? I have 120—

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Sir J. SIMON: I think that that had better be left to private enterprise.

ITALY, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY (PROTOCOLS).

Mr. JOHN WILMOT: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give the House any information about the conversations at Rome between Italy, Hungary and Austria and, in particular, about their bearing on the undertaking given by Austria in the 1922 protocol not to alienate its independence and to abstain from any negotiations and from any engagement calculated directly or indirectly to compromise its indepedence?

Mr. JOEL: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make any statement with regard to the attitude of His Majesty's Government to the negotiations in Southern Europe bearing on the future of Austria and Hungary; and whether there has been any practical result of the three-Power conference on the subject?

Sir J. SIMON: A summary of the Protocols signed by Italy, Austria and Hungary at Rome on Saturday has appeared in the Press. I have not yet received the full text, but so far as I am at present aware it does not conflict with the undertaking given by Austria in the 1922 Protocol.

Mr. WILMOT: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider whether it would be wise for the British Government to take the initiative in conversations designed to offer a guarantee of independence to Austria, conditional upon the re-establishment of free institutions in that country?

Sir J. SIMON: I do not think I could answer a supplementary question on that subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

FINLAND (BRITISH WEEK).

Miss WARD: 17.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether there is any evidence of increased busi-
ness coming to British firms as a result of the British week in Finland; and whether any part of the expenses incurred was a charge on public funds?

Lieut.-Colonel J. COLVILLE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Yes, Sir. But as the particulars are long, I propose, with the consent of my hon. Friend, to circulate them in the OFFICIAL REPORT. AS regards the second part of question, no charge on public funds was incurred.

Miss WARD: As I understand the reply is favourable, is it the intention of the hon. Gentleman to promote further trade exhibitions in other parts of Europe?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Yes, Sir. That will have our consideration.

Following are the particulars:

COMMERCIAL RESULTS OF BRITISH WEEK IN FINLAND.

The following reports have been received from Finnish Agents regarding the result of the British Week.

Textiles.

Reports from nine local agents give the value of orders placed with British manufacturers immediately after the week as approximately £50,000.

In several cases the agents reported that the value of orders they were able to place subsequent to the week were double and even treble those for the same period in the preceding year.

Chemicals.

Orders for over £40,000 worth of chemicals were placed in September largely as a result of the week.

Hardware.

An important firm of hardware importers in Finland have stated that their sales were 25 per cent. higher than the previous year owing to interest aroused by British Week.

Office Machinery and Sundries.

Sales to the value of £1,400 were effected during and subsequent to the week. One agent stated that the value of his orders was double that for the same period of 1932. A British manufacturer of typewriters was able, for the first time, to sell machines in Finland and dispose of upwards of 70.

Leather.

Increased business has been reported from several sources, one United Kingdom firm in particular having secured contracts for approximately £4,500 which it attributes solely to the week.

Wool.

A local agent reports that as a result of the week his sales of knitting wools during the last three months of 1933 amounted to £2,700.

Automobiles and Accessories.

British cars and trucks having in the past been almost unknown in Finland the week was solely responsible for the sale of 41 lorries and 8 cars.

Machinery.

Sales were reported to be satisfactory and one firm during and immediately after the week sold hosiery and finishing machines of a type not previously imported from the United Kingdom to a value of over £1,000. Orders for similar machines are in contemplation.

Literature.

The two largest book stores in Helsingfors state that during the week their sales of English literature increased by more than double. Since the week these stores reported that they have also observed a much larger interest than hitherto in English literature as well as technical and scientific books.

The figures of Finnish foreign trade show that Finland imported from the United Kingdom in January, 1934, goods to the value of 68 million Finnish marks or 23.5 per cent. of total imports as compared with 39.6 million Finnish marks or 18.3 per cent. of total imports in January, 1933.

SUEZ CANAL DUES.

Mr. MACLAY: 42.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the British Government receives approximately £2,000,000 every year from its Suez Canal shares, and that over £43,000,000 have been received since the shares were purchased; and, in view of the fact that the divdiends are largely the result of canal dues paid by British ships, will he bear in mind these sums when considering ways and means for helping the British mercantile marine?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I understand that the figures are approximately as given by my hon. Friend. As
regards the second part of the question, all relevant considerations will be borne in mind.

Mr. THORNE: Can the hon. Gentleman say from memory the amount of money invested?

Dr. BURGIN: No, Sir.

RE-OKGANISATION.

Mr. T. SMITH: 43.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the various traders and manufacturers have improved their methods of production and marketing under the new fiscal system to the satisfaction of the Government; and, if not, what action it is proposed to take to secure re-organisation?

Dr. BURGIN: I could not attempt to deal within the limits of a Parliamentary reply with the subject which the hon. Member raises.

TEXTILES (ANGLO-JAPANESE NEGOTIATIONS).

Mr. STOURTON: 44.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he has any statement to make with regard to the cotton industry pursuant to his conversations with the Japanese Ambassador?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: My right hon. Friend saw the Japanese Ambassador on 16th March and the Ambassador intimated that he would communicate with his Government. I cannot say more at present.

MERCHANDISE MARKS ACT (PROSECUTIONS).

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: 58.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the number of convictions during the past 12 months of persons offering for sale non-British goods as being of British origin?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I regret that the figures for which the hon. and gallant Member asks are not available, as they are not distinguished in the returns from those relating to other offences against the Merchandise Marks Acts. During 1932, which is the latest period for which the returns are complete, 353 persons were found guilty by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction of offences against those Acts.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the existing machinery is adequate to deal with this class of offence?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I have no grounds to think otherwise.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

PIGS AND BACON MARKETING SCHEME.

Mr. TURTON: 18.
asked the Minister of Agriculture how many new bacon factories have been started since 13th October, 1932?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I regret that the information which my hon. Friend desires is not available.

Mr. TURTON: 19.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what is the present capacity of bacon factories operating under the pigs and bacon marketing scheme; and what percentage of capacity was utilised during the last contract period?

Mr. ELLIOT: The present maximum capacity of the bacon factories in Great Britain is estimated at between 3½ and 4 million pigs per annum. The registered pig producers contracted to supply pigs during the last contract period on a scale equivalent to approximately 1,750,000 per annum. On this basis the percentage of total factory capacity utilised may be taken to have been rather less than 50.

Mr. TURTON: 20.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what was the total number of contracts, and in respect of how many pigs, entered into by pig producers for the period from the 1st March to 31st December, 1932?

Mr. ELLIOT: I regret I am not in a position to make a statement at present, but I hope to be able to do so shortly.

MEAT IMPORT RESTRICTIONS (BEEF).

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: 21.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, having regard to the fact that the retained imports of beef and veal in February, 1934, were the highest for the month of February in any year yet recorded, he can state when it is proposed to restrict the imports of beef as a whole?

Mr. ELLIOT: My hon. Friend will appreciate that regulation of imports can only be undertaken in observance of our existing agreements with the Dominions and with foreign countries.

Mr. WILLIAMS: When does my right hon. Friend propose to effect such a re-
vision of these agreements as will enable us to protect the British livestock industry?

Mr. ELLIOT: My hon. Friend knows better than almost anybody that these agreements in respect of meat run out in the summer of this year.

Mr. THORNE: Does the Minister think that he will be able to restrict the hon. Member's "chin-wagging" so much on Fridays?

Captain SHAW: 24.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the fall in price of fat cattle in Scotland, he intends to take any further steps to restrict imports of foreign beef; and whether the restrictions on imports of beef, already announced, are being in practice adhered to?

Mr. LAMBERT: 25.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that beef imports for the first two months have exceeded last year's imports by over 220,000 cwts.; and what measures are in prospect to check these imports in order to secure reasonably remunerative prices to home producers?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am aware of the increase in imports of beef in the first two months of this year, which is attributable to larger supplies of frozen beef from Empire countries. These supplies are not at present subject to regulation. Foreign countries have hitherto adhered closely to their allocations, and I have no reason to suppose that they are not continuing to do so. With regard to further measures affecting imports, I regret I am unable to add to the reply which I gave on 15th March to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte), of which I am sending my hon. and right hon. Friends a copy.

Mr. LAMBERT: Will the Minister kindly answer the last part of Question No 25—when the cattle producers in this country are to expect reasonably remunerative prices?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid I could not answer that question. As to the question of time for consideration, my right hon. Friend will find that dealt with in the last part of the answer of which I am forwarding him a copy.

Sir H. CROFT: Can the Minister give an assurance to the House that, when the present agreement comes up for reconsideration, no methods will be precluded from his purview, and that the "doctor's mandate" will be unlimited in this respect?

Mr. ELLIOT: Our examination is quite unprejudiced except in so far as we are limited by engagements which have been entered into.

Lord SCONE: Has there been any communication with the Governments of the Dominions with a view to further restriction of Dominion supples?

Mr. ELLIOT: We are in continual communication with the Dominion Governments regarding the whole of these agricultural questions.

Mr. WILMOT: Will the right hon. Gentleman be equally careful to see that the price of supplies is such that the consumer can continue to consume?

Mr. ELLIOT: That is one of the essential points. My hon. Friend will not deny that the cost of living has consistently fallen.

DOMINION PRODUCE (IMPORTS).

Mr. LAMBERT: 27.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that the imports of frozen beef, butter, and cheese from the Dominions have largely exceeded previous imports; and what action it is proposed to take in order that these imports may be checked, thus giving the home producer the first preference in the home market?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am aware that imports of butter, cheese, and beef from Dominion sources were larger in January and February of this year than in the corresponding months of 1933. As regards dairy produce, I would, however, remind my right hon. Friend of the statement on the Government's milk policy which I made on 22nd February, while, as regards beef, as I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland - Troyte) on Thursday last, the situation will be further considered as soon as I receive the report of the Reorganisation Commission for Fatstock, which is expected shortly.

Mr. LAMBERT: When these agreements come to an end, may we expect
that the home producer will have the first preference in the home market?

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes, Sir. I think the Dominions have also agreed to that position. It is generally agreed that the home producer should have the first place in the home market.

Duchess of ATHOLL: Is it not the case that the agreement made by the British delegates at Ottawa in regard to restriction of the Dominions' exports of meat referred to 1933 only; and may we know whether similar arrangements, or other suitable arrangements, are being discussed with them for 1934?

Mr. ELLIOT: It is very difficult for me to go over the agreements at Question Time, but I think it would not be correct to say that they merely run to the end of 1933. There were clauses which covered the first six months of 1934 as well.

MILK PRICES (ARBITRATORS' AWARD).

Earl WINTERTON (by Private Notice): asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the fact that the price to be paid to farmers for milk sold to distributors as a result of the arbitrators' award, during the summer months period is even in the south-eastern area—where the price will be highest—below the cost of production, he can take any step to deal with the serious situation which will arise?

Mr. ELLIOT: I have no power under the Milk Marketing Scheme to alter the award, as such. I have no doubt that the appointed persons, before arriving at their decision, took all relevant factors into consideration, including costs of production.

Mr. LAMBERT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the award of the arbitrators will leave such a small margin to the producer of liquid milk that it will be impossible to carry on productively?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid that I cannot enter into discussions as to the merits of the award. The award has been made, and I have no power under the scheme to alter the award as such. The arbitrators gave very full consideration to the matter before making their award.

Earl WINTERTON: In view of the very serious situation which is likely to arise through the withholding of milk from the distributors, would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to see the accredited representatives of the National Farmers' Union on the whole matter?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am always prepared to meet the representatives of the National Farmers' Union.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any intention of going behind the backs of the arbitrators, or is he going to take any steps to interfere with their decision?

Mr. ELLIOT: I have said that I have no power to alter the award.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Yes, but is the right hon. Gentleman going to apply any other method of trying to get round it? If not, what is the use of seeing the National Farmers' Union about the question?

Mr. ELLIOT: As the hon. Member is aware, there are provisions in the Act of 1931 whereby aggrieved persons may lay their complaints before a committee of investigation, and, if that committee of investigation reports, I have to take certain action. It is possible that certain facts might be laid before me which would make it impossible for me to say that I would refuse to deal with them.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Who suggested that there should be arbitrators?

Mr. ELLIOT: It was agreed between the two sides when the scheme was put forward, and it was finally clinched by this House.

Mr. MAXTON: Does it not show the weakness of putting things into the hands of people who are not responsible to Parliament?

Mr. ELLIOT: In the present Parliament I doubt if the pressure would be on the side of my hon. Friend. Putting these matters directly into the hands of Parliament might lead to far greater injustices and grievances than those which have arisen.

TITHE RENTCHARGE.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: 22.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will in-
troduce legislation for the compulsory apportionment or redemption of tithe on land sold for building purposes?

Mr. ELLIOT: The Tithe Act, 1878, provides for compulsory redemption of tithe rentcharge charged on land which has been divided for building or other purposes into numerous plots, and the Tithe Act, 1925, extends this to any case where the Ministry is satisfied that land is about to be so divided. Further legislation does not, therefore, appeal-to be necessary.

Mr. WILLIAMS: In case of any local difficulty of this kind, has the Minister power to act?

Mr. ELLIOT: I do not think the Minister has power to act except in cases in which he is approached by those concerned, but I find it a little difficult to answer a point like that when it is put in a supplementary question.

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: 23.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if his attention has been called to the hardship and vexation sometimes caused to the buyer of a small plot of land by his having to pay tithe on the neighbouring land as well as his own and to collect what he can from his neighbour; and whether he will take steps to alter the law in this respect?

Mr. ELLIOT: In the case referred to by my hon. Friend it is open to the purchaser to apply to the Ministry for re-apportionment by which his property can be charged separately with tithe rentcharge, and in such case is required to pay only his share of the cost of re-apportionment. Alternatively, the purchaser can apply for compulsory redemption, in which case he will only be called upon to pay his share of the cost of redemption of the whole tithe rentcharge. In these circumstances, I do not feel that the matter calls for further legislation.

Mr. WILLIAMS: May I ask to whom application would be made for compulsory redemption?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid that I should need to have notice of that question.

NATIONAL STUD.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the number
of stallions standing at the National Stud at Tully, County Kildare; how many outside mares they have served; and the total fees collected for 1932 and 1933, respectively?

Mr. ELLIOT: Two stallions stood at the National Stud in 1932 and 1933; two mares were served in 1932, and 18 in 1933, and the fees earned were £47 5s. and £714, respectively.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: In view of the unsatisfactory state of affairs disclosed by these figures, will the Minister consider the desirability of bringing the National Stud to this country, either in whole or in part?

Mr. ELLIOT: Not only have I considered that point, but I answered a question on it a few days ago.

Captain HEILGERS: Will my right hon. Friend consider bringing it to New-market, which is the national home of racing?

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

COUNTER LOSSES.

Mr. LEWIS: 28.
asked the Postmaster-General for each of the last five years the amount of counter losses incurred by the Post Office?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): The losses due to unexplained deficiencies in the cash or stock of counter clerks were as follow:



£


1928–29
10,310


1929–30
10,155


1930–31
9,674


1931–32
11,366


1932–33
11,149

Captain CROOKSHANK: Has my right hon. Friend any estimate of the amount of money concerned?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir; about £800,000,000.

CABLES (LICENCES).

Mr. SMITHERS: 29.
asked the Postmaster-General why the licences to two American cable companies were not renewed; has there been any consequential loss of revenue; whether the American cable companies pay royalties or other dues; and, if so, what is the amount so received for the last three completed years?

Sir K. WOOD: The formal licences for these companies' cables have not been renewed owing to certain difficulties which have not yet been overcome. Arrangements have, however, been made for the companies to continue their services, and there has been no consequential loss of revenue. The companies pay for the lease of telegraph lines and for other services rendered to them by the Post Office, but they have never made any payment to my Department in the nature of a royalty.

Mr. SMITHERS: 30.
asked the Post-master-General whether he is aware that the Imperial and International Communications Company has applied for a licence to land a cable in America and been refused; and will he, in making any future arrangements, take steps to secure the same facilities for British companies operating in America as American companies enjoy in Great Britain?

Sir K. WOOD: I am informed by the Imperial and International Communications Company that they have not applied for a licence to land a cable in the United States. In considering any future arrangements for the grant of cable-landing licences, the question of reciprocity will not be overlooked.

AIR MAILS (INDIA).

Mr. REMER: 31.
asked the Postmaster-General if letters and packages posted by air mail and taken by Imperial Airways to India are transported on any portion of their journey by train; and if he can state the reason for this?

Sir K. WOOD: The Indian air mail is at present conveyed by rail between Paris and Brindisi, and on this point I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. Members for Melton (Mr. Everard) and Wolver-hampton East (Mr. Mander) by the Undersecretary of State for Air on the 7th February.

Mr. REMER: Is it the fact that the mails sent by the Dutch and French air mails arrive in India two days earlier than those sent by Imperial Airways?

Sir K. WOOD: That is another matter; I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

FOREIGN CABLEGRAMS.

Mrs. COPELAND: 33.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that
cablegrams sent through the Post Office to places abroad frequently do not reach their destination, although those sent through a cable company do; and whether he will cause an investigation into the matter to be made?

Sir K. WOOD: I have no reason to believe that telegrams for places abroad sent by the Post Office are more liable to non-delivery than those sent by other routes. In the two specific cases to which my hon. Friend has called my attention, the telegrams were addressed to countries which are not served by Post Office routes, and they were handed over to a cable company for transmission abroad. The telegram for Panama has been traced; and I will ask the company to which it was handed to make inquiry concerning the cause of its failure. I will also make inquiry concerning the telegram which failed in delivery after arrival in Canada, if my hon. Friend will inform me at what Post Office it was handed in and on what date.

Mrs. COPELAND: Thank you very much.

TRANSATLANTIC TELEPHONE SERVICE (RATES).

Mr. MACLAY: 34.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the large potential demand for transatlantic telephony, he can hold out any prospect of the rates being reduced in the near future?

Sir K. WOOD: The possibility of reducing the rates in the transatlantic telephone service is considered from time to time, in consultation with our partners in the service, but I am unable to hold out any immediate prospect of a reduction.

Mr. MACLAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman look on the matter as one of considerable importance in view of the increased trade that might come about if ordinary business firms were able to speak daily across the Atlantic?

Sir K. WOOD: I will have regard to that.

BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION.

Mr. FLEMING: 32.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is in
possession of fuller details of the expenditure incurred by the British Broadcasting Corporation than is contained in the last annual report submitted to him by that body?

Sir K. WOOD: The answer is in the negative.

Mr. HOLFORD KNIGHT: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it to be unnecessary to use his power under the Charter to make a further investigation of all the documents?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, Sir; I see no necessity for it.

Mr. FLEMING: 35.
asked the Post-master-General whether he will consider instituting an inquiry into the general administration of the British Broadcasting Corporation before the renewal of the corporation's charter; and whether, in view of the considerable time that such an inquiry would take, he will make an immediate announcement on the matter?

Sir K. WOOD: As the Charter granted to the British Broadcasting Corporation has nearly three years to run, it would, in my opinion, be premature at the present time to consider the appointment of a committee of inquiry such as my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. SMITHERS: Would it not be a good thing to take the time by the forelock and appoint a Select Committee now to make the necessary inquiries?

Sir K. WOOD: No. That matter was considered by the House of Commons, I think, in February last year, and only 27 Members voted for the proposal.

Mr. KNIGHT: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been called to the various criticisms and comments throughout the Press on these matters and does he not consider—

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter of opinion.

ADMIRALTY COURT.

Lord APSLEY: 36.
asked the Attorney-General whether he is aware that anxiety is felt in shipping circles, not only in Great Britain but in other countries also, as to the proposals contained in the Second Report of the Business of Courts Committee as affecting the Admiralty
Court; and whether he can give an assurance that there is no intention of abolishing or in any way diminishing the status or authority of the Admiralty Court?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Thomas Inskip): My attention has been called to statements which have appeared in the Shipping Press as well as in other quarters suggesting that the abolition of the Admiralty Court is under consideration. My Noble Friend, the Lord Chancellor, is well aware of the unique standing and reputation of the Admiralty Court and I am very glad to have his authority for assuring my Noble Friend that nothing will be done in any way to alter its character or diminish its authority.

OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT.

Mr. McGOVERN: 37.
asked the Attorney-General if his attention has been drawn to the statement in the "Daily Express" of 14th March, in which they give the names of Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Alexander as having voted for dole cuts in the Labour Cabinet, and proposing to give the names of the other 10 Members who voted for a similar policy; and if he proposes to institute proceedings under the Official Secrets Act against this newspaper?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Before I answer the question, may I express my regret to the hon. Member that I was not here on the last occasion owing to the fact that I was not in my room at one a.m. on the morning the question was asked. I am not aware of any such statement. The hon. Gentleman has called my attention to a comment in the "Daily Express" of 14th March, to the effect that whereas another newspaper had thanked nine Cabinet Ministers who opposed certain economy measures, there were 12 other Members of the same Cabinet including Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Alexander. I am satisfied that no proceedings under the Official Secrets Act could be properly instituted in respect of this statement.

Mr. McGOVERN: While one newspaper stated that there were nine, the other gave no names. The "Daily Express" gave two. I think the right hon. Gentleman means that there is no offence. If this newspaper is correct and gives
the names of the other 10, will there still be no breach of the Official Secrets Act?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The hon. Member suggested in the question that the newspaper, the "Daily Express," had said that Mr. Morrison and Mr. Alexander voted for the dole cuts in the Labour Cabinet. I pointed out in my answer that the "Daily Express" made no such statement and merely said that there were 20 Members of the Cabinet, of whom only nine had been' thanked by the "Daily Herald."

Mr. McGOVERN: I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that I sent him a cutting in which it states very definitely that Mr. Morrison and Mr. Alexander—

Mr. SPEAKER: rose—

Mr. McGOVERN: I only wanted to ask further, if this statement is true and the other names are given, will it be a breach of the Official Secrets Act?

The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I will consider any statement when my attention is called to it.

Mr. COOKS: Is it not a fact that a complete fabrication cannot be an official secret?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

WATER-TIGHT COMPARTMENTS.

Mr. CHORLTON: 39.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he is aware of the circumstances under which the Japanese torpedo-boat of advanced design remained afloat after capsizing; and whether he is satisfied that His Majesty's ships are fitted with an equally efficient system of water-tight compartments?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lord Stanley): As regards the first part of the question, I have no information beyond that appearing in the public Press. As regards the second part, there is no reason to suppose that His Majesty's ships are less efficient, in the matter of water-tight subdivision, than those of other Powers.

Mr. CHORLTON: In view of the vessel being of advanced design, would the Noble Lord take steps to ascertain the reason for the ship capsizing?

Lord STANLEY: If we get hold of any other particulars, I will let the hon. Member know.

ELECTRIC WELDING.

Sir P. GOFF: 40.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty to what extent electric welding is being carried out in naval construction at present?

Lord STANLEY: The extent to which electric welding is being used at present in British naval construction varies with the experience of the dockyard or firm concerned. It is the intention to increase the use of welding to the greatest practicable amount.

FLEET EXEECISES.

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: 41.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the fact that the flotilla destroyers of the Blue Fleet, in the recent naval manoeuvres, were ordered to proceed to Lagos for shelter owing to heavy weather, and took no part in the manoeuvres; that the greater part of these destroyers are over-age and long over-due for replacement; and whether steps are now being taken to substitute new and seaworthy craft which will be capable of defending the shores of the United Kingdom in heavy weather?

Lord STANLEY: It is correct that most of the destroyers of the Blue Fleet returned to Lagos on 12th March, but it is not justifiable to suggest that these vessels are unseaworthy on that account. While every endeavour is made to render Fleet exercises as realistic as possible, my hon. Friend will appreciate that risks which would be taken in war are not always justified on manoeuvres. With regard to the last part of the question, one of these flotillas will be replaced in the Home Fleet by new construction vessels in the autumn of 1934 and another flotilla early in 1935, by which time only four of the destroyers concerned will still be serving.

Sir W. DAVISON: Does not that statement show, as indicated in the question, that these vessels had to be sent into Lagos because they were overdue for replacement? I understand that none of the destroyers in the other fleet had to put into port at all, but were kept at sea in spite of the heavy weather.

Lord STANLEY: I do not think that assumption is justified. It happened that these vessels had to go in the teeth of a very heavy gale. The hon. Gentleman
will have seen from the papers the effect it had on liners of far greater tonnage. That, I think, answers his point.

HIS MAJESTY'S JUDGES.

Sir W. DAVISON: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he has considered the memorial from the London Chamber of Commerce urging His Majesty's Government to take steps to reaffirm the independence of His Majesty's judges of Parliament and the executive, and to make it clear that their status is not on a par with that of His Majesty's civil servants; whether he is aware that a declaratory Bill, making provision as above is now before this House; and whether the Government will give facilities for its further stages?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald): I have read the resolution of the London Chamber of Commerce urging His Majesty's Government to make a declaration reaffirming the independence of the judges and that their status is not on a par with that of His Majesty's Civil Service. I am very glad once more to affirm on behalf of the Government the absolute independence of His Majesty's judges and their unique status among persons in His Majesty's service. I am advised that in these circumstances it is unnecessary to give facilities for the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend.

Sir W. DAVISON: In view of the feeling throughout the country that this is not clear, would it not be better that the whole House of Commons should have an opportunity of expressing their opinion in the matter? This is a one Clause declaratory Bill which can be put through practically without any time being taken. It is only now not before us because it has been blocked by the Government Whips.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

STATISTICS.

Mr. DAGGAR: 46.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will state the quantity of coal produced in Great Britain and South Wales, respectively, for the year 1913 and for each of the years 1920 to 1933; and the quantity separately for cargo and bunker and the price per ton f.o.b. of coal exported from Great Britain and
South Wales, respectively, for the year 1913 and for each of the years 1920 to 1933?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ernest Brown): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to a similar question given to him on 29th March, 1933, of which I am sending him a copy. Particulars

—
Great Britain.
South Wales and Monmouthshire.


1913.
1933.
1913.
1933.



Thousand tons.


Output of coal
287,348
207,000*
56,830
34,417*


Quantity of coal shipped as:






(a) Cargo
73,400
39,068
29,876
16,064


(b) Foreign bunkers
21,032
13,457
4,994
2,978



s. d.
s. d.
s. d.
s. d.


Average declared value per ton f.o.b. of cargo shipments.
13 10
16 1
15 4
19 9


* Provisional figures.

PARK COLLIERY, ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD (ACCIDENT).

Mr. GORDON MAC DONALD: 47.
asked the Secretary for Mines if his Department has been informed of the accident at the Park Colliery, Ashton-in-Makerfield, on Wednesday last, which resulted in three deaths; whether he has any knowledge as to the cause of the accident; and, if not, whether he will ask for a detailed report from the Divisional Inspector of Mines on the matter?

Mr. E. BROWN: I regret to say that there was an extensive fall of roof last Wednesday in a roadway at Park Colliery, Ashton-in-Makerfield, which resulted in the death of three workmen. I have already taken steps to obtain a detailed report in the matter from the Divisional Inspector, and a report of the proceedings at the inquest, which is being held to-day. The House will, I am sure, wish me to take this opportunity of expressing their deep sympathy with the relatives of the deceased.

Mr. MACDONALD: Will the Secretary for Mines direct the attention of the local inspector to the work which the men were doing at the time the accident took place, and also to the method of timbering in this kind of working place?

in respect of foreign bunker shipments for the years 1928 to 1932 will be found in Table 28 of the 12th Annual Report of the Secretary for Mines, and those for earlier years in previous reports. I will circulate with the OFFICIAL REPORT the details for 1913 and 1933.

The information is as follows:

Mr. BROWN: I will consider the matter.

RATES (LONDON).

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: 48.
asked the Minister of Health the total amount of the rates collected in London during the year 1933; and what was the total and percentage cost of collection?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): The estimated amount of rates to be collected in London during the year ended 31st March, 1934, is £28,320,000. The total cost of collection for that year has not yet been ascertained. The cost of collection in the year ended 31st March, 1932, the latest year for which figures are available, was £198,545, which was equivalent to two-thirds of 1 per cent. of the rates collected during that year.

Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: Can my hon. Friend say what proportion of the rates are collected directly from the tenants?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: I am afraid I should have to have notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

POLICE FORCE (LANARKSHIRE).

Mr. McGOVERN: 50.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether any police officers were dismissed from the service of the Lanarkshire Police Force as a result of the recent prosecution of police officers who were alleged to have abused Frank Hillhouse, Cambuslang, in a cell after arrest; whether any were removed from the Cambuslang area; and whether the Lanarkshire Police Force will be reorganised in order to restore public confidence?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): The reply to the first part of the question is that no police officers have been dismissed. With regard to the second part, I am informed that two police officers have been removed from the Cambuslang area. As respects the third part, I am informed that the chief constable does not consider that the reorganisation of the police force is necessary.

Mr. McGOVERN: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether, arising out of that case, any policemen have been suspended?

Sir G. COLLINS: No, Sir, they were not suspended.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been called to the sheriff's remarks at the trials, and is it not wise, seeing that the chief constable himself has not thought fit to reorganise the police force, that he should intervene, in view of the sheriff's very pointed remarks at the trial?

Sir G. COLLINS: The judgment given by the sheriff was that the case was not proven, and, in view of that statement, I must accept it. As my hon. Friend well knows, the question of discipline in the police force rests entirely with the chief constable.

Mr. MAXTON: Oh, no!

Mr. McGOVERN: Will the right hon. Gentleman make further inquiries in view of the fact that the two policemen—a, sergeant and a constable—are both out of the force at present, one working with a local joiner, and the other with a garage proprietor; will he make further inquiries
to see that the correct information is supplied to the Souse.

Sir G. COLLINS: Two police officers have been removed, but I am not certain from the information on inquiries which I made this morning whether they are the two police officers whose conduct was before the sheriff on the 18th January, but, as my hon. Friend wishes to know whether those were the two officers who were before the sheriff, I will make further inquiries. I did so this morning, but I did not do it in time.

MILK PRICES.

Mr. LEONARD: 51.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the Scottish Milk Marketing Board, when requested to operate Section 13 (1) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, by introducing a consultant to consider a fair summer price for milk, announced their intention to inform any consultant appointed that, whatever his recommendations, they would not depart from the 2s. summer price they as a board had decided; and what action he proposes to take in such circumstances?

Sir G. COLLINS: With regard to the first part of the question, I would remind the hon. Member that the Statute confers upon marketing boards a discretionary power as to the appointment of consultants and that the fixing of milk retail prices is a matter in the first instance for the Scottish Milk Marketing Board. With regard to the second part, I would refer to the answer given by me on Tuesday last in reply to a question by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood).

Mr. LEONARD: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is desirable to have such a dictatorial attitude with regard to persons who have received monopoly powers from the State?

Sir G. COLLINS: I understand that the Milk Marketing Board decided that the appointment of a consultant would serve no useful purpose. As my hon. Friend knows, the interests of the consumers are safeguarded by the provisions of the 1931 Act.

CINEMA LICENCES.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 52.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that in England and Wales it is
held that Sub-section (1) of Section 2 of the Cinematograph Act of 1909 empowers local licensing authorities to attach to cinema licences conditions as to the films which may be exhibited and as to the admission of children in certain cases, whereas in Scotland it is held that this Sub-section confers no such powers; and whether he will take steps to secure that there shall be uniform interpretation and administration of the same enactment throughout Great Britain?

Sir G. COLLINS: I understand that in England and Wales the position is as stated in the first part of the question. The matter has not been the subject of judicial decision in Scotland, but my predecessors and I have been advised that it is unlikely that the Scottish courts would hold it competent to attach to cinema licences such conditions as are referred to in the question. As regards the last part of the question, in Scotland the interpretation of the law lies with the Scottish courts, and the administration of the licensing system rests with the Scottish licensing authorities under the Act of 1909. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of a circular recently issued by my Department, which shows the steps which I have taken in the matter.

Mr. DAVIES: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that it is satisfactory that the same Act of Parliament should be interpreted differently in Scotland from what it is in England and Wales in this matter?

Sir G. COLLINS: Oh, yes, Sir. We always observe the right in Scotland to interpret the law in the light of Scottish knowledge and experience.

CIVIL AVIATION (COMMITTEE).

Mr. SIMMONDS: 53.
asked the Undersecretary of State for Air the number of members of the Committee on Civil Aviation under the chairmanship of Lord Gorell who are directors of companies in receipt of Air Ministry contracts; and the total value of the contracts received by each of such companies during the current financial year?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): As regards the first part of the question, the committee, including the chairman, consists
of seven members, of whom, according to my information, two are directors of companies holding Air Ministry contracts. One of these latter was nominated by the Society of British Aircraft Constructors; the other is a Member of this House. As regards the second part of the question, it would be contrary to established practice to disclose the value of the contracts placed with individual firms.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Will my right hon. Friend agree that these contracts are in both cases quite considerable?

Sir P. SASSOON: I am afraid that I cannot answer that question, as I was asked for figures and not for a personal opinion.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

ROYAL DEFENCE CORPS.

Captain ARTHUR EVANS: 54.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office from what source commissioned ranks of the Royal Defence Corps will be recruited; and if regulations are to be issued governing these appointments?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): Commissioned ranks of the Royal Defence Corps, Territorial Army, will be drawn from ex-officers of the Regular and Territorial Armies who are unfit for active service or over 45 and under 60 years of age. Officers in Class II of the Regular Army Reserve of Officers or Class II of the Territorial Army Reserve of Officers may also be selected with the approval of the Army Council. The officers will be selected by the Territorial Army County Associations, and when commissioned will form part of the Territorial Army and will be governed by the existing regulations for that force.

Captain EVANS: May I ask my hon. Friend whether, in view of the fact that officers of Class I of the Regular Army Reserve are automatically transferred to Class II because of their failure to report annually in writing to the War Office, such officers will be considered for appointment?

Mr. COOPER: I shall want notice of that question.

OFFICERS' SERVANTS (DOMESTIC DUTIES).

Mr. HICKS: 55.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether his attention has been called to the inquest on Private Stanley Madin, aged 19 years, of the Northants Regiment; whether it is usual for any young soldier in His Majesty's Army to be placed under the control of the wife of any officer and made to perform domestic duties in that officer's home; and whether he will issue instructions that officers shall be required to provide in their homes their own domestic servants and that soldiers shall not be subject to military discipline for inefficiency in such domestic duties?

Mr. COOPER: I have seen a newspaper report of the inquest. King's Regulations permit the employment of soldiers, when available, as officers' servants, as an indulgence. No soldier can be ordered to perform domestic duties, but he may do so voluntarily. He is not subject to military discipline for inefficiency in the performance of such duties. I see no reason for the issue of any instructions on the subject.

Mr. HICKS: Do I understand from the hon. Gentleman that, in the event of an officer threatening to report such a servant for military discipline, the hon. Gentleman would take action to see that the man was dealt with properly?

Mr. COOPER: Certainly.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: Does my hon. Friend see any material difference between performing domestic duties in an officer's home and in an officers' mess?

FIRES (INQUIRIES).

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 57.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in view of the disclosures at the Central Criminal Court in the course of the trial of Leopold Harris and others, he will introduce a Bill to give generally throughout the country the power to hold inquiries into fires which exists in the City of London under the provisions of the Cty of London Fire Inquests Act, 1888?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Blackpool (Captain Erskine-Bolst) on the 13th November last, of which I am sending him a copy.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

MOTORING OFFENCES.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 59.
asked the Home Secretary whether he has yet received answers from chairmen of quarter sessions to his letter inviting their opinion as to extending the penalty of suspension of driving licences to cases of careless as well as dangerous driving; and what is the consensus of these opinions?

Sir J. GILMOUR: A considerable number of replies to the Home Office circular of 22nd January last are still outstanding, but those received so far indicate that there is a substantial body of opinion among Magistrates in favour of a power to disqualify a driver who is convicted of careless driving, even if there has been no previous conviction.

ROAD TRAFFIC (ABNORMAL LOADS).

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 61.
asked the Minister of Transport what precautions were taken to prevent damage to roads as the result of the transport by road from the East Coast to the West Coast of a whale weighing 75 tons; and whether the sanction of the Traffic Commissioners was obtained for this transport?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): Neither the Minister's sanction nor that of the Traffic Commissioners is necessary for the transport of abnormal loads, but if my hon. Friend wishes to study the restrictions under which they move I would refer him to the Motor Vehicles (Authorisation of Special Types) Order, No. 1, 1931, of which I will send him a copy.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Sir W. DAVISON: 62.
asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the numbers of road accidents daily occurring, he will arrange for a weekly statement to be made in the House of Commons as to the total number of persons killed and injured on the roads during the preceding week, with a view to impressing the seriousness of this matter upon the public and the need for care and consideration on the part of all road users?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: Arrangements have already been made with my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for
Scotland for the number of persons killed and injured on the roads to be reported weekly for a period beginning at Easter in order that they may be available for publication in connection with the coming campaign for the reduction of road accidents.

Sir W. DAVISON: In view of the exceptional casualties on the roads last year, numbering 220,000, does the hon. and gallant Gentleman not think that some statement might be made in the House weekly, so that Members of Parliament would have it before them and could bring it to the notice of their constituents?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I think probably that the people of this country might learn more about the subject if the information were published in some other way. I am not at all sure that they study the reports of this House as closely as they ought to do.

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Will the details of the accidents be published as well?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: I cannot give that information at the moment, but I will look into the matter.

PRISON RULES (VISITORS).

Mr. McGOVERN: 60.
asked the Home Secretary the reason for refusing permission to Lieutenant Baillie Stewart to have the hon. Member for Shettleston as an ordinary visitor at Maidstone Prison on his official visiting day; if the Governor's refusal was dictated by the Home Office after consultation; and if no Member of Parliament will be permitted to visit this prisoner as an ordinary visitor on the day he is due to have a visit?

Sir J. GILMOUR: The hon. Member informed me that he wished to visit this prisoner with the object of investigating the question whether he had been rightly convicted. The purpose for which visits to convicted prisoners are allowed by the Prison Rules is to enable them to keep in touch with their friends and relations. Visits could not properly be allowed to facilitate informal and unofficial investigations of cases which have been determined after judicial inquiry by a legal tribunal. Visits by Members of Parliament stand on a similar footing to other
visits: in all cases regard must be had to the object for which the visit is sought.

Mr. McGOVERN: If further representations are desired by this prisoner will he be allowed to have a visit from an agent?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Any request of that kind will have to be considered.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: May I ask if the prisoner invited the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) to visit him?

Mr. McGOVERN: Yes.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Why should he not do so?

NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Mr. GROVES: 16.
asked the Minister of Pensions why W. C. Lane, case No. 11/m/212,975, at present an in-patient at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, is not in receipt of treatment allowance, as his presence in hospital is due to a prescribed course of treatment whereby the patient cannot earn wages, or salary, or support his wife?

The MINISTER of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): I am inquiring into this case and will communicate with the hon. Member.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister how far it is proposed to go in the event of the Motion for the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule being carried? May I also ask whether it is the intention to take the Second Reading of an important Bill which has been put down on a Supply day, and whether there is not a growing tendency to encroach upon Supply days?

The PRIME MINISTER: As I explained to the House on Thursday there is no intention of encroaching and the Resolution on the Paper has not the effect of encroaching upon a Supply day. If Supply is finished before eleven o'clock, then the Government's proposal in the Resolution will come into operation. If the Supply day is not finished before eleven o'clock, then the Resolu-
tion is a very ordinary one that we put before the House. It is not intended to take the Second Reading of an important Bill such as the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill unless we can move it somewhere about 9.30 p.m.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: In regard to the growing practice of putting down other business on Supply days, is it not the case that when Parliament decided that all the outstanding Votes in Supply should be guillotined at the end of the Session, it was intended that the 20 days allocated to Supply should be occupied solely by Supply business and that if the number of Votes put down for a Supply day was not adequate to fill up the time other Votes could be put down in order to complete the day, rather than have a guillotine Vote at the end of the Session?

The PRIME MINISTER: During the last two years the Report stages of the three Service Estimates have been obtained before 7 o'clock. Although other business has been proceeded with, the House on one occasion adjourned at 7.20 p.m. and on another occasion at 9.55 p.m.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Do not those facts show that the Government arrangement of business was not satisfactory as a sufficient number of Supply Votes were not put down for those days to keep the attention of the House?

Mr. MAXTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on each of the allotted days so far Government business has been put down? That is equivalent to putting pressure on the House to conclude its business before the recognised time. Is he not aware that the pressure which can be exercised in such circumstances is very effective, and that it is not being completely frank to say that the Government have no intention of doing this? The fact that they have put these other Measures on the Order Paper is a declaration of their intentions, as is also the fact that they propose to move the suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule. Having declared their intentions, we of the Opposition know well the usual pressure which is applied to carry out such intentions. So far not one of the three allotted days has been free for
Opposition purposes, and I should like to know whether this principle is going to be applied by the Government to the other 17 allotted days?

The PRIME MINISTER: The hon. Member is really under a misapprehension. The Government expect the House to take the full allotted time for the three Service Votes on Report stage, but, if it does not, we do not wish the House to rise early and, therefore, we propose that certain pressing business should be done which the House will have to do before Easter in any event.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The Prime Minister has really two Motions in the one on the Order Paper. It may be true that for the last two years this practice has been followed, but if the right hon. Gentleman will go back to the time when there was a normal opposition, I mean normal in size, he will find that it was not the case. It is not fair to expect an Opposition small in numbers to keep business going in the same way as a big Opposition. It must also be remembered that the Liberal party sat with the Government on the Government side and the Opposition was then limited to about 45 members. As he well knows, if Government supporters do not speak on Supply it is almost impossible for an Opposition of that size to keep the Debate going all day. In view of the change in the composition of the Opposition and also in view of the fact that the Sugar Bill has been down twice already, I hope he will reconsider this question and not put down Government business on Supply days. The Prime Minister ought to be the guardian of the rights of Members of this House; at least it is alleged that he is the guardian of our rights. I shall divide the House on both these Motions. I think that the Prime Minister is most unfair in this matter and is not upholding the traditions of Parliament.

Motion made, and Question put,
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 14, Business other than Business of Supply may be considered before Eleven of the clock, and that the Proceedings on Reports of Supply of 12th, 8th, and 15th March may be taken after Eleven of the clock."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 230; Noes. 42.

Division No. 169.]
AYES.
[3.46 p.m.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J.Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Gibson, Charles Granville
Patrick, Colin M.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Perkins, Walter R. D.


Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Gledhill, Gilbert
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Apsley, Lord
Glossop, C. W. H.
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Atholl, Duchess of
God, Sir Park
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Goldle, Noel B.
Rankin, Robert


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Rathbone, Eleanor


Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham


Balniel, Lord
Granville, Edgar
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Bateman, A. L.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Graves, Marjorle
Remer, John R.


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Grigg, Sir Edward
Rickards, George William


Benn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Grimston, R. V.
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Blaker, Sir Reginald
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Blindell, James
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Runge, Norah Cecil


Borodale, Viscount
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Bossom, A. C.
Hanbury, Cecil
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Boulton, W. W.
Hanley, Dennis A.
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Llverp'l)


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hartland, George A.
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenn'gt'n)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Savery, Samuel Servington


Broadbent, Colonel John
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Scone, Lord


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chetmst'd)
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Smith, Sir J. Walker- (Barrow-in-F.)


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newby)
Hepworth, Joseph
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Klnc'dlne, C.)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Smithers, Waldron


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Burnett, John George
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Spans, William Patrick


Butler, Richard Austen
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Stevenson, James


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hutchison, W. D. (Essex, Romford)
Strauss, Edward A.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton.


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Summersby, Charles H.


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Sutcliffe, Harold


Clarke, Frank
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E.A. (P'dd'gt'n, s.)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Levy, Thomas
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Lewis, Oswald
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Cook, Thomas A.
Liddall, Walter S.
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Cooke, Douglas
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Cooper, A. Duff
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Tree, Ronald


Copeland, Ida
Locker-Lampion, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd.Gr'n)
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Turton, Robert Hugh


Crossley, A. C.
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Wallace, John (Dunferm[...]lne)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Mabane, William
Ward, Lt.-Col, Sir A. L. (Hull)


Davison, Sir William Henry
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Dickle, John P.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Doran, Edward
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Duckworth, George A. V.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Duggan, Hubert John
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour


Dunglass, Lord
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Eden, Robert Anthony
Maitland, Adam
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Wills, Wilfr[...]d D.


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Winterton, Rt Hon. Earl


Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Womersley, Walter James


Fermoy, Lord
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Morris-Jones. Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Flint, Abraham John
Mulrhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Fox, Sir Gifford
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Sir Frederick Thomson and Sir


Fraser, Captain Ian
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
George Penny.


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.



NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Bernays, Robert
Cocks, Frederick Seymour


Banfield, John William
Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Daggar, George


Batey, Joseph
Buchanan, George
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Leonard, William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Edwards, Charles
Logan, David Gilbert
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Walsh Univ.)
Lunn, William
Thorns, William James


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Grundy, Thomas W.
McGovern, John
White, Henry Graham


Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mainwaring, William Henry
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Harris, Sir Percy
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)
Wilmot, John


Hicks, Ernest George
Maxton, James.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


John, William
Owen, Major Goronwy



Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Paling, Wilfred
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Rea, Waiter Russell
Mr. C. Macdonald and Mr. Groves.

Motion made, and Question put,

"That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing

Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 239: Noes, 43.

Division No. 170.]
AYES.
[3.55 p.m.


Albery, Irving James
Dickie, John P.
Leigh, Sir John


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Doran, Edward
Lelghton, Major B. E. P.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Duckworth, George A. V.
Levy, Thomas


Applln, Lieut.-col. Reginald V. K.
Duggan, Hubert John
Lewis, Oswald


Apsley, Lord
Dunglass, Lord
Liddall, Walter S.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Eden, Robert Anthony
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kllm'rnock)


Atholl, Duchess of
Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd. Gr'n)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)


Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.
Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Loder, Captain J. de Vere


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander


Bainlel, Lord
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Bateman, A. L.
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Mabane, William


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. C. G. (Partick)


Beaumont, Hn. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Fermoy, Lord
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Bonn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Fleming, Edward Lascelles
MacDonald, Rt. Hn. J. R. (Seaham)


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Flint, Abraham John
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton


Blaker, Sir Reginald
Fox, Sir Gilford
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Blinded, James
Fraser, Captain Ian
Macmillan, Maurice Harold


Borodale, Viscount
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian


Bossom. A. C.
Gibson, Charles Granville
Maitland, Adam


Boulton, W. W.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Gledhill, Gilbert
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Glossop, C. W. H.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Marsden, Commander Arthur


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Goff, Sir Park
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Brass, Captain Sir William
Goldie, Noel B.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Broadbent, Colonel John
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Granville, Edgar
Moreing, Adrian C.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H.C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Buchan- Hepburn, P. G. T.
Graves, Marjorie
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Grigg, Sir Edward
Munro, Patrick


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Grimston, R. V.
Nail-Cain, Hon. Ronald


Burnett, John George
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Butler, Richard Austen
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Nunn, William


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Hanbury, Cecil
Patrick, Colin M.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hanley, Dennis A.
Perkins, Walter R. O.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Hartland, George A.
Ra[...]kes, Henry V. A. M.


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington. E.)
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Rankin, Robert


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Rathbone, Eleanor


Clarke, Frank
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham


Clarry, Reginald George
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hepworth, Joseph
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Colman, N. C. D.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Remer, John R.


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Hoare, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir S. J. G.
Rickards, George William


Cook, Thomas A.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Cooke, Douglas
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Cooper, A. Duff
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Copeland, Ida
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Cranborne, Viscount
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Hutchison, W. D. (Essex, Romf'd)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Crossley, A. C.
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Davidson. Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Davison, Sir William Henry
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Savery, Samuel Servington


Scone, Lord
Summersby, Charles H.
Wayland, Sir William A


Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
Sutcliffe, Harold
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour.


Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E.A. (P'dd'gt'n,S.)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Smith, Sir J. Walker (Barrow-ln-F.)
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Klnc'dlne, C.)
Thorp, Linton Theodore
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Smithers, Waldron
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Somerville, Annesley A (Windsor)
Touche, Gordon Cosmo
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Tree, Ronald
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Spens, William Patrick
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. I.
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Turton, Robert Hugh
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Stevenson, James
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Womersley, Walter James


Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Strauss, Edward A.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Strickland, Captain W. F.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)



Stuart, Lord C. Crichton.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.
Sir Frederick Thomson and Sir


Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
George Penny.


NOES.


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hamilton, Sir R.W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Maxton, James


Banfield, John William
Harris, Sir Percy
Owen, Major Goronwy


Batey, Joseph
Healy, Cahir
Paling, Wilfred


Bernays, Robert
Hicks, Ernest George
Rea, Walter Russell


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
John, William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Buchanan, George
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Thorne, William James


Daggar, George
Leonard, William
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Logan, David Gilbert
White, Henry Graham


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Lunn, William
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Edwards, Charles
McEntee, Valentine L.
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
McGovern, John
Wilmot, John


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Mainwaring, William Henry
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Grundy, Thomas W.
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot



Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—




Mr. G. Macdonald and Mr. Groves.


First Resolution read a Second time.

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).

STANDING COMMITTEE C.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C: Captain Arthur Hope; and had appointed in substitution: Colonel Crookshank.

Mr. William Nicholson further reported from the Committee; That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (added in respect of the Electricity (Supply) Bill): Sir Isidore Salmon; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Burnett.

Reports to lie upon the Table.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

[3RD ALLOTTED DAY.]

REPORT [12th March].

Resolutions reported,

NAVY ESTIMATES, 1934.

"1. That 92,338 Officers, Seamen Boys, and Royal Marines be employed for the Sea Service, together with 884 for the Royal Marine Police, borne on the books of His Majesty's Ships, at the Royal Marine Divisions, and at Royal Air Force Establishments, for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

2. That a sum, not exceeding £12,633,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Wages, etc., of Officers and Men of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and Civilians employed on Fleet Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

3. That a sum, not exceeding £2,277,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings and Repairs at Home and Abroad, including the cost of Superintendence, Purchase of Sites, Grants and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

4. That a sum, not exceeding £3,165,700, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Victualling and Clothing for the Navy, including the cost of Victualling Establishments at Home and Abroad which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935."

4.4 p.m.

Mr. GEORGE HALL: I beg to move, to leave out "92,338," and to insert "90,338."
I might say at the outset that this Amendment was not put down only for the purpose of having a discussion. My colleagues on this side of the House are quite serious in attempting to demand this reduction, because we say that the increase asked for in this Vote cannot be justified, taking into consideration all the circumstances connected with the Fleet. In dealing with this matter, it will be as well to trace the personnel of the Fleet for the last five or six years. Compared with 1927, when the numbers amounted to just over 101,000, there was a reduction in 1932 to just under 90,000. As a matter of fact, it was realised before
the last Conservative Government went out of office that the Navy was over-manned, for in the three years 1928, 1929 and 1930, there was a reduction in the personnel of no fewer than nearly 7,000 officers and men. That, in itself, is an indication that at that time it was felt that the Navy was over-staffed. In 1931, Mr. Alexander, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, in the Statement which he issued with the Navy Estimates, referred to the fact that it was possible to have further reductions owing to the operation of the London Naval Treaty. Let me quote Mr. Alexander's words in the Statement on page 4:
Further, the provisions of the London Naval Treaty relating to the earlier scrapping of capital ships have been the main factor in effecting a saving on cost of personnel amounting in these Estimates to some £400,000. The Vote A figure for 1931–93,650—represents the number expected to be borne on the first day of the new financial year, and that number is expected to fall (almost entirely by natural wastage) to 91,840 by 31st March, 1932.
When this reduction took place, it was brought about with the full knowledge and the concurrence of the Board of Admiralty. There was no question that it was felt that not only the services afloat, but the services ashore, were swollen, and this reduction was brought about. At that time it was considered that they had reached numbers which were sufficient to meet all the requirements of the Navy. When one compares the position to-day with, if you like, the pre-London Naval Treaty period, one cannot understand why in the last two years it has been necessary to increase the personnel by something like 2,600. If one compares the tonnage, one can best quote the statement of the First Lord when he introduced the Estimates for 1932 and said that in the year 1931–32 we had to dispose of 74,000 tons of warships and completed barely 26,000 tons. The operation of the London Naval Treaty meant, in the words of the present First Lord, a reduction of 60,000 tons. The reduction did not operate only in that year. The tonnage is similar to-day to what it was in 1931–32 when the First Lord made his statement, and with the reduction of 50,000 tons we have at the present time a personnel similar in numbers to what it was before the scrapping of these ships took place. Comparing the tonnage position to-day with any previous tonnage, I think it may be argued that there is no justification for this in-
crease. One might compare the tonnage with that of 1913. In that year we had a tonnage of 2,160,000; at the present time the tonnage is just over 1,100,000. I think that in 1913 the personnel of the Fleet was about 140,000; at the present time it is working up to 93,000.
In dealing with the Fleet of 1913, it is interesting to compare, not only the actual tonnage, but the class of ship with that which we have in the Navy at the present time. In reply to a question which I put to the First Lord on 14th February of this year, he stated that in 1914 we had 69 capital ships and at the present time we have 15. In 1914, we had 108 cruisers, and at the present time we have 51. In 1914, we had 216 destroyers and 106 torpedo boats, making a total of 322 destroyers and torpedo boats, as they were then classified. At the present time we have 152. In 1914, we had 74 submarines as against 52 at the present time. Compare the Fleet and personnel at the present time with the pre-War Fleet and personnel, there can be no justification for this increase, taking into consideration the tonnage which we had at that time. I know that in previous Debates on the personnel of the Fleet the personnel of the Japanese and the American Fleets have been referred to. Hon. Members who ask us to take into consideration the increases in the personnel of those fleets I would answer in the words of my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty. Speaking on the Motion "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" when this question of personnel was raised last year, he said:
I would ask hon. Members not to pay too much attention to actual numbers. Every country has a different method of manning its ships; different countries' ships of the same tonnage and armament might have an entirely different complement, and it must not be assumed from that fact that the ship with the smaller complement is less efficient. Efficiency is determined by the quality, not by the quantity, of the men in the ship."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1933; col. 2252, Vol. 275.]
I agree with those remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. Even taking into consideration the position at that time, there is no justification for the increase in the number of personnel asked for under Vote A. I know it can be argued that there have been considerable changes in
post-War ships compared with pre-War ships which may make them more difficult to manipulate and control at the present time. One can grant that, but, allowing for it and taking into consideration the reduction in tonnage, the increase in personnel would more than cover any changes which have taken place in the mechanism of the ships. I have repeated on more than one occasion in this House the effect on the Navy in the change over from coal to oil. In 1913 there were between 39,000 and 40,000 stoker ratings when coal was the fuel used. At the present time, the number of stoker ratings is down to something like 17,000 to 18,000, so that the Admiralty has been able to benefit considerably by the change from coal to oil in the number of ratings for the Fleet.
It is interesting to note the changes which have taken place in the personnel in the last three or four years. The number of commissioned officers asked for in Vote A shows a reduction of 364 compared with 1931. That is in three years. There has also been a reduction in the number of subordinate officers of 189 or a total reduction of 550 commissioned and subordinate officers. But while there has been this reduction there has been an increase of 161 in the number of warrant officers in the same period. Some of the higher ratings have gone and lower ratings have come in and that is why there is such a small variation in Vote 1 as regard wages. There is a very large increase of 2,304 in the number of boys in service and in training, and, on balance, allowing for the reduction in the number of commisisoned and subordinate officers and seamen, and the increase in the number of warrant officers and boys, Vote A now asked for by the Government shows a number which is only 111 fewer than the number asked for in 1931.
I come back to the point at which I started, to say that, taking all the factors into consideration, we cannot see any justification for the increase. As regards the reduction in the number of officers, while there is a saving in Votes A and I there is an increase in Votes 13 and 14 which are non-effective Votes. The Admiralty must be somewhat alarmed at the increase in these Votes from year to year. At the present time, the non-effec-
tive Votes call for something well over £9,000,000 and that is a point which must be taken into consideration. The First Lord, in dealing with the increase in personnel, expressed his satisfaction that as a result of the increase the men would have greater comfort than they had previously. We on these benches would not do anything to interfere with the comfort of the personnel of the Navy. As long as we have a Navy, we certainly say that the officers and men should live under conditions which are as comfortable as possible consistent with service at sea.
We are a little concerned about some other matters in this Vote. The First Lord said that ample numbers of recruits were presenting themselves and that for every candidate accepted for service fourteen were rejected. That is an indication that there is no falling-off in desire to offer themselves for service in the Navy, on the part of boys of fourteen or fifteen or whatever may be the age of entry. But while we are told that there is no difficulty in obtaining suitable recruits, we find under Vote A an increase in the number of officers required far recruiting purposes. On page 22 we find that the number of recruiting officers in the 1933 Estimates was 70. The Government are now asking for an increase of five on that number and I suggest that there is no justification for that increase.

Mr. SPEAKER: May I point out to the hon. Gentleman that what he is speaking of now comes under Vote I and deals with recruiting expenses.

Mr. HALL: I am simply dealing with the numbers.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member referred to page 22 and the matters on that page certainly come under Vote I.

Mr. HALL: As far as the actual numbers are concerned, unfortunately in Vote A we have no comparison as between the Estimates of this year and those of last year. The same thing applies to the numbers of officers and men and also to the number of Royal Marines. While the actual money comes under Vote I the numbers for which the money is required come under Vote A.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is so, but I think the hon. Gentleman was speaking of expenses.

Mr. HALL: I wish to confine myself to the numbers but it is not easy to make any comparison between the number now-asked for under Vote A and the number asked for last year unless one also refers to Vote I. There is a comparison between the numbers provided for this year and last year in the Vote covering wages and expenses. I wish also to mention the question of the Royal Marines. In Vote A it will be seen that while there has been a reduction in the number of commissioned officers in the Navy, there has been an increase of 14 in the number of commissioned officers in the Royal Marines in 1934 as compared with 1933. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to give an explanation if possible of why this increase has been found necessary. One would like to ask my right hon. Friend whether the Admiralty are sufficiently conversant with the work which a number of seamen and marines do on shore and whether it is work which is, strictly speaking, naval work. Is it the case that numbers of seamen and marines are employed in semi-private capacities in the homes of naval officers? There is, unfortunately, a feeling in some of the naval ports that a number of the personnel, and especially ratings, are employed on duties which are not strictly naval duties and it behoves the Admiralty to inquire from time to time and ascertain for themselves whether such complaints are justified.
I find that on the "Enchantress," which is the Admiralty yacht, 40 ratings are employed. The First Lord answered a question on this subject some time ago and my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secertary very readily responded to an inquiry which I made recently and gave me the figures. This yacht has not been used for service at sea for something like 10 or 12 years, though used on one occasion, in 1929, to accommodate some members of the board. Year by year since the War a sum of £3,500 has been required to keep this yacht in the condition in which it is at present. A large proportion of this money goes to retain the personnel of 40 on the yacht. The Geddes "axe" committee in 1922 recommended that the yacht should be sold. She was put up for sale and at that time failed to attract a buyer. The First Lord in reply to a question in June of this year said the ship had not been
used for her proper duties since 1929 and was not being used for her proper duties owing to the extra expense which would be incurred. In answer to a Supplementary Question he said he was hoping for better times to come and that when they came he would ask for enough money to commission this ship because he thought it was necessary in connection with the duties of the board. The right hon. Gentleman, however, said he would not ask money for that purpose while times were bad. I do not know what is the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman or the board, but I see no prospect of times being so much better than they are, as to enable us to afford enough money to commission the "Enchantress." I think it a waste of money to retain a personnel of 40 to keep this yacht which is unlikely to be used for some time to come. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) raised this matter on the Navy Estimates proper and I hope we shall hear something from the Parliamentary Secretary about it.
The last point which I wish to make is a very important one. It relates to the position of naval officers who desire to become Members of this House. Questions have been put to the First Lord recently concerning paragraph 17a of King's Regulations relating to the Navy. The essence of that regulation is to permit naval officers becoming Parliamentary candidates and enabling them, if they fail to secure election, to continue in the Service. No officer or man in the Service is permitted to issue an election address, or in any other manner publicly to announce himself or allow himself to be announced as a candidate or a prospective candidate for any constituency. We are not complaining on this side of the result of a recent election and it is not for us in any way to attempt to interfere even if we desired to do so with that election. I feel sure as was pointed out in the previous Debate on the Estimates we extend a very hearty—

Mr. SPEAKER: Does this matter come under Vote A?

Mr. HALL: I am still dealing with the number to be provided under Vote A.

Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to increase the number?

Mr. HALL: My proposal is to diminish the number but that does not refer to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who unfortunately comes within the difficulty with which I am dealing now. I understand that the board now contemplate the alteration of the regulations to make it regular for Admirals of the Fleet to offer themselves as candidates for this House. All we ask is that, if the regulation is going to be amended, the amendment should not be confined to the higher naval officers. It really ought to be so amended that each member of the personnel should have the right of carrying out his duties as a citizen.

Mr. SPEAKER: I really think this is quite out of order. It cannot be raised to-day, though it may some other day.

Mr. HALL: I bow to your Ruling, Sir. I am dealing with an officer who is included in the numbers asked for, as I understand it, in Vote A, but I accept your Ruling and will not proceed any further. In face of what I have already said in dealing with personnel, when one considers that in two years there is an increase of 2,600 officers and men I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to inform the House whether the Board of Admiralty has yet made up its mind as to the numbers required under Vote A to keep the Fleet efficient. As I have pointed out, from 1927 to 1932 there was a reduction of something like 10,000 in the numbers while from 1932 to 1934 there is an increase of 2,600. Can we expect an increase in numbers next year? Or are the numbers now provided for under Vote A sufficient to meet all the requirements of personnel? Speaking on behalf of my colleagues here, we feel that there is no justification for the increase. The First Lord of the Admiralty, in his speech on the Estimates, and the Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply to the discussion, did not in any way satisfy us that the increase asked for under Vote A is justified. For these reasons, I move the reduction.

4.33 p.m.

Commander MARSDEN: The hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) has raised some very ingenious arguments why the Fleet should be reduced by a certain number of men, but I am afraid his arguments are not reasonable from the point of view of what he would con-
sider desirable, because a reduction of men must first of all affect the efficiency of the Fleet. Here are two reasons why it would militate against efficiency. Only a year or two ago it was decided to reduce the complement of capital and other ships in the Atlantic Fleet. The experience of the War had shown us that a certain number of men are necessary and through the shortage of men the complements have been cut down. I can give another instance. As long as I can remember when a ship was due to leave a foreign station, the new crew would go out and relieve it on the station. If it was coming home the new ship would be on the station before its return. That is not the case now. I do not say in every case, but in many cases a ship comes home from a foreign station, arrives in England, has perhaps to be refitted, pick up a new crew and go out again, and during that period the foreign station is short of one unit. That is the second instance where the small number of men militates against the efficiency of the Service.
My hon. Friend said that he would hesitate to vote for the reduction if it would act against the comfort of the officers and men, but it is as necessary from that point of view as from any other that the number should be increased. One of the most appalling things for a man in His Majesty's Service is to come from abroad to Home Service and think he is out for a more or less peaceful time at home to see his family and get a certain amount of shore life and then, because there is a shortage of men, to have his leave restricted in every direction. The barracks are almost denuded. I think I mentioned last year an incident of a tug of war team which came up to the Royal Tournament on condition that they would be defeated in the first round because they could not be spared from the barracks. These things act against a happy and contented Service at home. I am sure my hon. Friend is voting against an increase in the number of men for political reasons, and, if the political reasons did not exist, he would vote for an increase.
I would like to refer to the Warren Fisher Committee. Hon. Members will remember that this Committee was set up some little time ago to inquire into the condition of the medical services.

Mr. SPEAKER: That matter does not arise on this Vote.

Commander MARSDEN: I believe it does somewhere, but I cannot on the spur of the moment think how. The service is allowed a certain number of medical officers, and they are certainly borne on this Vote. We would like to hear from the Minister who replies, how soon it is intended to give effect to the Committee's recommendations, because the last thing that was said was that they should be given effect to very soon. I am very nervous about being out of order, and there are not many questions I can raise. I should have said something about officers on half pay, but you have ruled that out of order. I hope, if my hon. Friend brings it up when the opportunity arises, we may say something about it. I oppose the Amendment to reduce the number, and I feel sure the House will be of the same opinion.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. COCKS: I know the First Lord of the Admiralty says there is an increase of 2,057 this last year. The point to which I want to draw the attention of the Financial Secretary is, that whereas since the War, or before, there has been a very large decrease in the number of ratings in the lower deck, there has been an increase in the number of officers. The proportion of officers to men has largely increased since the War. For example, from 1914 to last year the lower deck ratings has decreased from 148,000 to 87,000, but the number of admirals, captains, commanders and lieutenant-commanders has actually increased from 1,500 to 1,750, although there are fewer vessels afloat. Last year the First Lord of the Admiralty promised that steps were being taken to reduce the large proportion of officers to men, but I see in the February Navy List that there were 10 more captains than in February of last year and one more rear-admiral. I know inducements are being made to get lieutenant-commanders to retire at an earlier age, but I would suggest that further steps should be taken, not only to reduce the number of officers in the Fleet, but, seeing the large proportion already, to reduce the number of entries of cadets. Otherwise, we shall get the same thing in future years. That means expense to the Government in training these officers in
the first place and then giving them money to retire at an early age.
I think some further steps should be taken to reduce the number of flag officers. The rank of Admiral of the Fleet could be abolished altogether and those who hold it could take a useful and respected part in political work. Admi[...]ls of the Fleet very rarely fly their flags ashore or at sea. Certainly the number of rear-admirals requires consideration; some of the work they are now doing could be done by captains, and they would not require so large a staff. We are rapidly approaching a time when we shall have almost more admirals than quarter decks for them to walk upon. On the other hand, I believe that as far as the lower deck is concerned, ratings are not coming forward as they ought to do in order to re-enlist, and the Admiralty has to offer promotion. I was glad to hear from the Admiralty last week that they hope to make the new scheme of promotion from the lower deck a success. I do not know if I am in order in dealing with promotions from the lower deck. If so, I would like to say a few words.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not see how that would affect the numbers of men.

Mr. COCKS: I have been looking through the Estimates and I do not see any other Vote on which it could be dealt with. Surely it must be dealt with.

Mr. SPEAKER: It might be covered by Vote I.

Mr. COCKS: Then I will raise the question of promotion from the lower deck on Vote I. There was one question the Financial Secretary did not deal with last week. The number of writers and supply ratings shows a large increase as compared with last year. Is there any special reason for this increase?

4.43 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lord Stanley): The hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) in moving the reduction of the Vote said it was not intended as a peg for discussion, but to be taken seriously. I am sorry to hear that, because it means that he was not convinced by the argument I gave either in the Debate last year or in my reply the other day as to the reasons
the Admiralty have had for increasing the personnel during the past two years. He has made comparisons between the size of the Navy at the present time and the size in 1913. He also called attention to my speech last year when I said we ought not necessarily to compare the numbers in our Fleet with the numbers in other fleets, because the construction of the ships might be different. To that point I still adhere, and I intend to tell the hon. Member that we are making no comparisons, in arriving at our new estimate of the numbers required, either with our needs of 1913 or with the personnel that is demanded by other countries. We are simply increasing the personnel to meet the actual requirements which we have found necessary. When the hon. Member was at the Admiralty he had a very easy time. He found it simple to reduce the numbers and to suffer no evil effects from the reduction because, owing to the surplus of ratings which had existed under a falling Vote A, the reduced number did not have a real trial until 1932, when it was found to be inadequate.
We had always hoped that the numbers that had been laid down for the complements of the various ships would be sufficient, and we also hoped that a sufficient margin for drafting purposes had been allowed. In both cases it was found that the numbers required in some of the ships had been under-estimated and that the complements were on the small side. The margin is the more important aspect of the question, however, and we found that with the margin allowed we could not possibly get along without interfering considerably with the welfare of the lower deck. As the House well knows, one of the things to which the lower deck pays most attention is the importance of having its fair share of home service, and we found it increasingly difficult to maintain the efficiency of the Fleet and to give all the ratings a fair share of home service. The difficulty has certainly been increased, as one hon. Member suggested, by the fact that the Navy is much more specialised and that the margin does not cover one large group but a series of very small groups, each of which has to be dealt with separately. I can assure the House that unless we get the increase for which we ask this year, the repercussions on the welfare of the lower deck will be very serious; and that is a result which,
I am sure, nobody, least of all the Mover of the reduction, would desire.
The hon. Member went on to discuss the reduction of officers. He is really very hard to satisfy, for he objected that while the reduction of the officers might make an economy on this Vote, it would increase the non-effective Votes, and he suggested we might be alarmed by the size of those Votes. In that point I agree with him, but for different reasons. We are alarmed because the non-effective Votes, which are growing very rapidly, are always quoted by our opponents and those who wish to misrepresent the actions of the Admiralty as part of our warlike preparations when, as a matter of fact, they are payments for past services. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Cocks) also referred to the question of the reduction of officers, and I can assure him that it is a point which is giving us more concern than any other. We are very desirous that the bottle-neck should be widened as far as possible so that officers who come into the Service should have a real chance of getting a successful career, and that they should not find themselves at an important period of their lives, not through any failure on their own part, faced with the fact that we have not enough positions in the Fleet for them to fill.
The hon. Member asked about one or two particular ranks. I think we had better take them from the top downwards. He discussed the question of the necessity for admirals of the fleet. The reduction of admirals of the fleet to the peace complement will gradually take place, and I cannot think the hon. Member really believes that the very modest number of admirals of the fleet is too many. After all, it is only right that people who have served their country for long with great success and courage should have an adequate reward. I give the hon. Member the same answer with regard to the number of officers on the flag list. If we are to make the Service attractive, we must have sufficient rewards for those officers who make a success of their careers. When the hon. Member says that shortly we shall have more admirals than there are quarterdecks, I am afraid he must be thinking of the present lamentable position of his own party, which seems to have more Members on the Front Bench than there are on the back benches.
The hon. Member also asked about the increase in the number of writers. That is due to a big wastage next year which has to be made good this year, and we must have the men ready trained so as to take up their positions when the others retire. I was asked why there had been an increase in the Marines. It is for exactly the same reason that applied to the increase in the seamen branches. We found that the margin was not sufficient, and therefore we have had to make a slight increase in the numbers both of officers and of men. There was a suggestion that a certain number of men were borne on the books of the Navy who were not doing the work for which they had been enlisted. In every Service there is always that fear and always the danger that proper attention is not paid to it, but I can assure the House that last year all these supernumeries were gone through with a comb when our numbers were short and we found difficulty in dealing with the drafting situation. I do not think there need be any fears on that point.
I was asked about the "Enchantress," and an hon. Member complained that we were locking up in her 40 men who were really being of no service at all. He did not go on to quote the First Lord's answer to his question in full, in which the First Lord explained that only 16 of these could be dispensed with if the ship was not retained. I think that it would be a great pity if the Admiralty yacht were to be scrapped for good and all. An Admiralty yacht has existed for over 100 years. The name "yacht" is a misnomer, because it is inclined to suggest a pleasure trip rather than a business cruise. It has enabled the Admiralty in past years to fulfil a very important part of its functions in keeping in touch with the personnel of the Fleet. There is no doubt that its loss has been very much felt, although I wonder whether at the present moment the First Lord, who is in the Bay of Biscay, is not more comfortable in a liner than he would have been in the Admiralty yacht. Successive Boards of Admiralty and First Lords have had the same opinion as to the desirability of keeping the Admiralty yacht, and it may be of interest to the House to know that the last time the "Enchantress" went to sea was in the time of Lord Chelmsford, who was the First Lord in the first Labour administration.
We are very anxious to keep a yacht, but we are anxious to do it in the most economical way possible and only to put her in commission if times are good and money can be found. The First Lord has always been anxious that the "Enchantress" should be commissioned once again when he has the money. The main reason for keeping this complement on board is to keep her in such a condition that she can either be easily recommissioned or kept in a condition to be sold. A new suggestion is now being investigated. It is that one of the new sloops which are being built might be adapted for the purpose. It would have the advantage that in war time she would be able to revert to the original use for

which she was intended. I hope that what I have said has reassured the House as to the need for the numbers of the personnel, and has particularly reassured the hon. Member who moved the reduction that the real reason that we want this increase in numbers is because last year, for the first time, we were able to find out with certainty the exact numbers which we required for the Fleet, and we found that, if we are to pay the attention that we want to the welfare and contentment of the lower deck, the numbers for which we ask in this year's Estimates are absolutely essential.

Question put, "That '92,338' stand part of the Resolution."

The House divided: Ayes, 245; Noes, 29.

Division No. 171.]
AYES.
[4.59 p.m.


Albery, Irving James
Cobb, Sir Cyril
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Colman. N. C. D.
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.


Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Cook, Thomas A.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)


Apsley, Lord
Cooper, A, Duff
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Cranborne, Viscount
Hepworth, Joseph


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Crookshank, Col. C. da Windt (Bootle)
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller


Atholl, Duchess of
Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)


Ba[...]fle, Sir Adrian W. M.
Crossley, A. C.
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Baldwin-Webb, Colonel J.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Davison, Sir William Henry
Hume, Sir George Hopwood


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Dawson, Sir Philip
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)


Balniel, Lord
Dick[...]e, John P.
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.


Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar
Doran, Edward
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.


Bateman. A. L.
Duckworth, George A. V.
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Duggan, Hubert John
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th.C)
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)


Belt, Sir Alfred L.
Dunglass, Lord
Ker, J. Campbell


Benn, Sir Arthur Shirley
Eden, Robert Anthony
Kerr, Hamilton W.


Bernays, Robert
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Elmley, Viscount
Knight, Holford


Bevan, Stuart James (Holborn)
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Blaker, Sir Reginald
Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)


Borodale, Viscount
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Leigh, Sir John


Bossom, A. C.
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Boulton, W. W.
Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Levy, Thomas


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Lewis. Oswald


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Fermoy, Lord
Liddall, Walter S.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Flint, Abraham John
Little, Graham, Sir Ernest


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Brass, Captain Sir William
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd.Gr'n)


Broadbent, Colonel John
Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Lockwood. John C. (Hackney, C.)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Fox, Sir Gilford
Loder, Captain J. de Vere


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Fraser, Captain Ian
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Buchan, John
Galbraith, James Francis Wallace
Mabane, William


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Gibson, Charles Granville
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Mac Andrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Burnett, John George
Glossop, C. W. H.
McCorquodale, M. S.


Butler, Richard Austen
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
McLean, Major Sir Alan


Butt, Sir Alfred
Goldie, Noel B.
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Grigg, Sir Edward
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Cassels, James Dale
Grimston, R. V.
Marsden, Commander Arthur


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Martin, Thomas B.


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Chamberlain, Rt.Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Hanley, Dennis A.
Mitcheson, G. G.


Clarke, Frank
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale


Clarry, Reginald George
Hartland, George A.
Moreing, Adrian C.


Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (Pd'gt'n, S.)


Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Munro, Patrick
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)
Tree, Ronald


Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Nunn, William
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Turton, Robert Hugh


O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Savery, Samuel Servington
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Patrick, Colin M.
Scone, Lord
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Pearson, William G.
Se[...]ley, Harry R.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Penny, Sir George
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Perkins, Walter R. D.
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n,Bilston)
Smith, R.W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Smithers, Waldron
Wayland, Sir William A.


Pownall, Sir Assheton
Somervell, Sir Donald
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour.


Pybus, Sir Percy John
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Wells, Sydney Richard


Raikes, Henry V. A. M.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Spans, William Patrick
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Rankin, Robert
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Rea, Walter Russell
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham
Stevenson, James
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Storey, Samuel
Womersley, Walter James


Remer, John R.
Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Rickards, George William
Strauss, Edward A.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Ropner, Colonel L.
Strickland, Captain W. F.



Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Ron Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.
Sir Victor Warrender and Mr. Blindell.


Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Summersby, Charles H.



Runge, Norah Cecil
Tate, Mavis Constance



NOES.


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Paling, Wilfred


Banfield, John William
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Parkinson, John Allen


Batey, Joseph
Hicks, Ernest George
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Buchanan, George
Lawson, John James
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Leonard, William
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Daggar, George
Logan, David Gilbert
Wilmot, John


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)



Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
McEntee, Valentine L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Edwards, Charles
McGovern, John
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Griffiths. T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mainwaring, William Henry



Fourth Resolution read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

5.8 p.m.

Mr. COCKS: In saying a word or two on the question of promotion from the lower deck I want to thank the Admiralty for the assurance they gave last week that they intended to make every effort to secure that the new scheme should be a success. Under the old scheme, in every half-yearly list since December, 1928, one ex-mate lieut.-commander has been promoted commander, but last December there was no such promotion. It is quite true that an ex-mate commander was promoted captain, but I do not find a promotion of one of the ex-mate lieut.-Commanders to the rank of commander. In December last year there were 421 lieut.-commanders in the zone for promotion, and of those 30 were ex-mates, and I was told, in
answer to a question, that out of those 30 ex-mates 17 were in sea-going ships. The Admiralty promoted 25 lieut.-commanders out of 421 to be commanders, an average of one in 16.8, but there were 17 ex-mates in the zone of those qualified for promotion, and. I think it was only right that one of those 17 should have received promotion. In two years' time all the ex-mate lieut.-commanders will be out of the zone for promotion altogether, and if we promoted one in each of the next three half-yearly lists it would mean that only 14 would have been promoted to the rank of commander out of 371—that is, one in 27, as against one in 11 of ex-cadets. Therefore, I feel that the ex-mates have not been treated fairly in the matter of promotion.
Another point I wish to raise is that in 1926 an Admiralty Fleet Order was issued stating that ex-mate lieutenants would be able to take specialist courses under the same conditions as ex-cadets. Since that time one has been given a gunnery course, one a torpedo course, another a navigation course, two a physical education course, and two have
taken the pilot-observer course. In six years 485 ex-cadets have specialised in seven courses, but among that number were only seven ex-mates, which is a very small proportion. The Larkin Committee recommended that men from the lower deck should be given destroyer training, and the First Lord of the Admiralty in the Labour Government promised that this should be done. As far as I understand however, destroyer training has not been given. One further point I have to make concerns the mechanical training establishment at Chatham. It is difficult to find out from the Estimates the cost of this establishment, because the items are dotted about in different parts. I see that 151 civilians cost £21,700 and teachers for apprentices £414, but cannot the whole cost of the establishment be assembled together, so that we can see at once what the outlay is, as we can in the case of Keyham College? Finally, I would thank the Admiralty for promising serious consideration to the point put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for North Battersea (Commander Marsden), my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Sir J. Pybus) and myself when we asked them to give the Fleet Engineering Branch of the Navy a position on the Board of Admiralty or in charge of some of the dockyards, in order that their great services to the Fleet shall be recognised.

5.12 p.m.

Lord STANLEY: The hon. Member raised the question of how the cost of the Mechanical Training Establishment at Chatham should be shown in the Estimates during their discussion in Committee, and I am sorry if I did not answer him on that occasion. In his original speech he compared this establishment to Keyham, and said that if we could show the cost of Keyham in detail why could that not be done in the case of this establishment. Keyham is an educational establishment and this one is looked upon as a fleet training establishment. It would be quite possible to do what he asks, that is, to collect the various items and show them together, but if we did it in this case we should have to do it for every other fleet training establishment, which would mean an expense which even the hon. Member would agree, I think, was not justified. On the ques-
tion of men who have risen from the lower deck, he referred particularly to the old or ex-mate scheme. I am sure that at such short notice he will not expect a detailed answer as to why specific things have not been done, but in general I would assure him that the moment these men get commissions no difference is made between them and officers who may have received commissions by any other method. Promotion and appointments go to those who are best qualified for particular jobs, irrespective of the way in which they may have entered the Service. It is quite possible that age is the reason why some of these ex-mates have not been promoted and have not been given specialist training. It may be that after they received specialist training they would be too old for promotion, and the time spent on their specialist training would be of no value to the Navy. That is the reason for the introduction of the new scheme, and I can assure the hon. Member, as I did on a previous occasion, that we are doing everything we can to make that scheme a success.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

5.17 p.m.

Mr. G. HALL: In this Vote there is an item of £714,000 in respect of the construction of the naval base at Singapore. The Estimate which is presented in regard to the completion of the scheme shows an increase of something like £1,000,000 upon Vote 10 for succeeding years. For that reason I would like to take advantage of this opportunity of asking the Civil Lord of the Admiralty a few questions concerning the base. From newspaper reports which have appeared during the last month or two, we find that there has been a conference of distinguished admirals, on the New Zealand station, I think, where a discussion has taken place concerning this naval base. I would ask the Civil Lord whether the increase which is now contained in the Estimates—I do not mean the increased expenditure, but the estimated increase for the completion of the work—has been put into the Estimate for
this year as a result of that conference? Taking into consideration the discussion which took place at the conference, I should like to ask whether this amount of money will be sufficient to carry out the whole of the work, or whether any extension of the original scheme is now contemplated? I have seen the suggestion that it is intended to purchase additional land and to provide additional works, which were deemed necessary in view of certain events which have taken place. I ask whether that is so, whether the original scheme is to stand and the amount of money—I think some £11,000,000—which has to be provided by the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry for the completed scheme, is to stand, or whether we can anticipate a large increase in this amount to provide the completed scheme?

5.19 p.m.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: I am very glad that the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) has raised this question, but I am not sure from the remarks which he made whether he is opposed to the spending of this money upon that all-important naval base. I would remind him that it is just as well that we should bear in mind that the whole of the Imperial defence of the East depends upon a base at Singapore, and that until there is a base, complete in every particular, we are not able either to defend our trade in the East, or to defend Australia, New Zealand, Malaya or India. It is quite impossible at the present time to send a fleet of heavy ships in certain circumstances to operate in the East at all, and we are quite impotent in those waters. It is a matter of the utmost importance that the base should be proceeded with, and I am only too thankful that some provision is made in the Estimates for proceeding with it. It is absolutely essential not only that the dock should be completed, but that the buildings, works and workshops, the pumping arrangements and the defences and so on should be completed at the earliest possible moment so that the base should be absolutely complete in all particulars. Until it is complete, we are unable to carry out any defence operations in those Far Eastern waters. It is just as well that the House and the country should realise the position in which we are placed. I cannot believe
that the hon. Member for Aberdare is opposed to the continuation of those defence works, which are necessary in order that we may be in a position to defend the immense interests which we have in those Eastern waters.

5.21 p.m.

The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Captain Wallace): It is quite unusual for the Admiralty to find only one subject raised on Vote 10, and I am extremely obliged to the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. G. Hall) and to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Paddington (Vice-Admiral Taylor) for enabling me to give, in a very few words, the reason for this increase in the total Estimate for Singapore. The hon. Member for Aberdare, who preceded me as Civil Lord of the Admiralty, will be well aware that this scheme has undergone a number of vicissitudes, and so far from the figure which we have now put into the Estimates being in excess of the original sum proposed, the original scheme as first adumbrated in 1933 allowed for something like £14,000,000 expenditure, of which £12,600,000 was to be borne on Navy Votes. Even, therefore, with the increase of £1,000,000, to which the hon. Member has referred, the amount which is now proposed to spend upon Singapore is actually less than the original Estimate.
The hon. Member for Aberdare has, I am afraid, been doing a good deal of newspaper reading. Though it is perfectly true that a conference was held, not at the Singapore base but in Singapore Harbour, two months ago between the Commander-in-Chief of the China Station and the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies Station, and that there were present at the same time an Admiral from New Zealand and an Admiral from the Australian Navy, the conference had nothing to do with the increase in the total Estimate, which was decided on before the conference started, and even before I went out to Singapore. The conference to which the hon. Gentleman refers was merely a routine conference. I am sure that he, as an ex-member of the Board of Admiralty, will agree that it is a very good thing for Commanders-in-Chief of neighbouring stations to meet and discuss problems. I can unhesitatingly give an assurance that what took place in His Majesty's Ship
"Kent" during that time had no sinister designs to do with Singapore.
I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that when we have spent the money which is now being asked for in the Estimates, we shall have an adequate base, properly equipped and properly defended. The real reason why we have had to increase the total Estimate is because, as my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty pointed out last Monday, the truncated scheme taken over from our predecessors included a hole in the ground where the graving dock was to be, and did not include the caissons, penstocks and electric power to work it. The main part of the increase is in order to make the base workable and efficiently defended. I may add that the idea that the creation of a naval base at Singapore is a threat to anybody is a pure delusion. You might just as well say that the naval establishments at Devonport are a threat to America, because Singapore is as far from any Eastern Power as Plymouth is from New York. I hope that in these circumstances the hon. Gentleman will fully appreciate the reasons for the increase, and that the House will give us this Vote.

REPORT [8TH MARCH].

Resolutions reported;

AIR ESTIMATES, 1934.

"1. That a number of Air Forces, not exceeding 31,000, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at Home and abroad, exclusive of those serving in India (other than Aden), during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

2. That a sum, not exceeding £4,210,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, etc., of the Royal Air Force at Home and abroad, exclusive of those serving in India (other than Aden), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

3. That a sum, not exceeding £1,675,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, Repairs, and Lands, including Civilian Staff and other Charges connected therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

4. That a sum, not exceeding £7,220,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the
Expense of Technical and Warlike Stores (including Experimental and Research Services), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

5. That a sum, not exceeding £513,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Aviation, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

5.27 p.m.

Captain GUEST: May I ask for your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? The whole subject of the Auxiliary Air Force has so far been excluded from the Debates. I quite admit that it could have been raised in general terms on the question of getting the Speaker out of the Chair, a week ago, but that is not a very good opportunity to raise a discussion upon what is a very big experiment in Air Force organisation. Therefore, I thought that possibly under Resolutions 2, 3 or 4, it might have been possible to deal with the personnel of the Auxiliary Air Force or with the material and equipment which are employed in that Force; otherwise I am afraid that it may simply go by default in the middle of the night or the end of the Session, and that nobody will have very much chance of expressing his views upon such an important subject.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): I am afraid that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot discuss that question upon any of these Votes, because, as he will see from the Estimates, the particular Votes to which he refers are expressly excluded. This relates to the auxiliary air service which has a Vote to itself. That particular Vote for the Auxiliary Service has not yet been before the Committee or been passed by the Committee, and therefore it has the ordinary stages to go through of Committee stage and Report stage. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman must take his chance of raising the question when the particular Vote comes up in Committee or on Report.

5.29 p.m.

Captain HAROLD BALFOUR: I want to raise only two points. The first is in respect of men who are discharged upon
completion of their service, and who have applied to complete for a pension, but, owing to the trades being full, they are unable to have their applications granted. I am not in any way trying to criticise the administration of the Air Ministry in respect of the limited number of men for pension, but I expect that many hon. Members as well as myself have had letters from constituents who are in the Services saying that they are bitterly disappointed and asking for our assistance and influence, if we have any, to allow them to complete for pension. Would it not be possible to institute some system whereby these men are notified earlier than is the case at present, when their services according to contract are completed, and when they will be unable to be granted an application in respect of the completion of further service for pension, so that what I would call—

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: That point is covered by the Vote for Non-Effective Services. If the hon. and gallant Member is trying to deal with pensions they come under another Vote.

Captain BALFOUR: I am not trying to deal with pensions; I am trying to deal with the administration of the Air Ministry in respect of these men while they are still on the active last, in order that, when they become non-effectives, their life may be somewhat easier than it is in the present circumstances. I would ask my right hon. Friend if the Air Ministry could consider some system whereby there should be notification of what trades are open for completion up to the pension stage at an earlier time than is now the case. A man probably applies within the last few months of his 12-year period of service, for permission to complete his service for pension, but that application cannot be granted. If it were possible to let him know a year or two years beforehand—the Ministry themselves know—that his trade is full, I feel that this disappointment just before he goes into civil life might be avoided, and his ability to get work when he has left the Service might be enhanced.
The second point that I desire to raise is with regard to the Fleet Air Arm allowances for officers, which come under this Vote. I know that during the last year the Air Ministry have been able to some extent to rectify the anomalies.
Fleet Air Arm officers have to serve a certain number of months afloat each year, which entails upon them a certain loss of allowances. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether he is satisfied now that the officer of the Royal Air Force serving in the Fleet Air Arm has a completely fair deal with respect to allowances? If the answer is in the affirmative, I hope that my right hon. Friend will allow me to bring to his notice some cases which I do not think are very fair; while, if the answer is in the negative, I should be glad if my right hon. Friend could give me an assurance that the Air Ministry have this matter constantly under review, and that, as and when financial circumstances permit, they will take steps to put it right.

5.33 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): With regard to the question of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thanet (Captain Balfour), about men who wish to apply to be allowed to continue their service in order to qualify for pension, it surprises me to hear him say that the notice given is not enough. We try to give as long notice as we possibly can. I will certainly take note of my hon. and gallant Friend's suggestion, and see whether any alteration is possible whereby earlier notice can be given, but we have the whole question constantly in mind, and, as my hon. and gallant Friend knows, we have now largely increased the gratuities for ex-apprentices and are doing everything that we can to mitigate hardships which we are unable to avoid.
In the second place, my hon. and gallant Friend asks me, with regard to general allowances, to reply "Yes" or "No" to his question whether I am completely satisfied with the position. I should be very sorry, and I am sure my hon. and gallant Friend would be very sorry, if I were able to answer a question of that kind either simply in the affirmative or simply in the negative. The situation was definitely much more unfavourable than it is now. Owing to what we have been able to do in the last year, the situation has been greatly eased, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend will agree that what we have been
able to do has gone a long way towards mitigating what was certainly an acknowledged evil.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution.

5.36 p.m.

Captain GUEST: I again rise for the purpose of asking assistance and information from you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, as to whether any opportunity can be found, under this Vote or the next one, to discuss what preparations are being made, if any, for a programme of expansion which may have to be announced in this House within a few months time? I do not know whether, under the head of payments which have to be made between 31st March, 1934, and 31st March, 1935, any opening could be found for consideration of what the programme of expansion might come to.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: We cannot discuss on this Vote any financial questions that go beyond the Estimates. That is quite certain.

5.37 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I want to ask my right hon. Friend if he can say anything about the proposed aerodrome at Mablethorpe, and what progress is expected to be made with it during the coming year? It is close to the sea coast, and we shall be very glad to hear anything that my right hon. Friend can tell us about it.

Captain BALFOUR: I desire to ask a question regarding an aerodrome which is in the middle of my constituency, namely, at Manston. Could my right hon. Friend say how long the married quarters at that aerodrome will have to continue in wooden war-time huts? I have raised this question on various occasions before, and have been told that the future of the Manston Air Station was still under consideration. Has its future as a permanent peace-time station now been settled, and, if so, can any works that may be necessary there be done under this Vote?

5.38 p.m.

Sir P. SASSOON: My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) is inquiring this year in a very different tone about the aerodrome which is situated in his constituency. Last year, and I think on previous occasions, he was rather inclined to take exception to what I pointed out to him would be a benefit to his constituency. In the course of the past year he appears to have realised that it will be a benefit to his constituency, and is anxious that it should be completed as soon as possible. I can give him every assurance that that will be the case. With regard to Manston, I am afraid I cannot tell my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Thanet (Captain Balfour) anything very satisfactory to him. The policy regarding the station is not yet definitely settled, and, until it is definitely settled, it would obviously be a mistake to demolish the huts to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, and which, although they are of no permanent use, will be useful during the intervening period. I will take note of what he has asked me, and will on the earliest possible occasion give him as much information as I can.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

5.40 p.m.

Mr. WHITESIDE: In this Vote we are granting a vast sum of money for the provision of aeroplanes, seaplanes, engines and spare parts, the primary object of which is to defend this country against an aerial attack. But on 10th November, 1932, the Lord President of the Council made this statement in the House:
I think it is well also for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can prevent him from being bombed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1932; col. 632, Vol. 270.]
I should like to ask the Under-Secretary what is the point of our voting this very large sum of money for the provision of these machines, if in fact there is no defence against aerial attack, and whether that is the considered view of the Air Ministry? During the last War,
when our Air Force was considerably larger than it is to-day, we effectively prevented all German raiders from May, 1918, onwards from breaking through. Would my right hon. Friend give an assurance to the House that the number of machines that we are about to build with the money which we are now going to grant will be sufficient at any rate to give us the same security in future, should the necessity arise, as we had during the last War? If the Under-Secretary can say that that is the case, I am sure it would give profound relief to the country, and we should be able to agree to the Resolution with enthusiasm.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. CHORLTON: I should like to ask for rather more details than are given in relation to engines, and what plans have been made to provide for an expansion, if such an expansion is called for. I do not think it is quite realised that the key to any expansion of any moment in the air depends on the engine. We found that to be the case in the last War. We found that, despite the utmost efforts that were made, we never could ge within 25 per cent. of the aeroplane production, because of our inability to build engines, and, as I was the person concerned and responsible, I realise this difficulty only too well. More than that, if the building of planes had been allowed to be extended as it could have been, we should have been 50 per cent. down. These are the figures that were worked out afterwards, and they are perfectly sound. They indicate in what a terrible state we should be if this difficulty were not properly foreseen. The arrangements that we have for research at Farnborough are good, but it is during the period between leaving research and beginning to get into production that the necessity arises for some expansible body, so to speak, some arrangement which will allow of a great increase as compared with ordinary production, and I am afraid that we have not got it. I am afraid that the belief of the Lord President of the Council, whom I am very glad to see in his place, that we could bring ourselves to a parity with the nearest striking force, is a belief that he would not hold if he went in for building engines.
Situated as we are, it is practically impossible, unless the Under-Secretary can tell us something that I do not know, to increase our Air Force if we wished to
do it. The aero-engine is a piece of mechanical engineering of the most highly skilled kind. It approximates to a watch. It depends upon extraordinarily skilled workmen, high-class machinery, and the finest materials that we have, and of all these things we found last time that we had not anything like sufficient. We drew engines from France, from Italy, from America, and, despite that, we were 25 per cent. down on the production of planes. If these Estimates are to provide for all this being done should the occasion arise in the future, something that is not disclosed will have to be told us by the Under-Secretary when he replies on what I consider to be the most difficult problem of the whole question. We cannot build engines today any easier than we could before. I do not think there is any harm in my saying that we drew very many engines from France, and each engine cost at least £200 to put into the position of being a usable engine so far as we were concerned. I only mention that to show how difficult it is to increase your supply. If there were a large number of aircraft on order in this country, for defence, I do not see how it would be possible to get through with them on account of the difficulties of engine production.
We must remember that the engine that secured the Schneider Cup for us is a very highly developed form of engine which is practically unable to be built anywhere except in the works in which it was designed. It is accepted generally that 90 per cent of the performance of an aircraft is dependent on the engine and if you are going to depend on this remarkable engine for results, where will you be if you desire to get in a short time parity with the nearest striking force? It seems to me that it is almost impossible. I do not want to go too far with this, but it is to me so extraordinarily serious that I feel it my duty to press the point as hard as I can. That is the only reason that I am speaking. It is without question the key to the whole situation. Unless further steps are taken and a broader basis built up, I am afraid we shall be seriously disappointed when the time comes in trying to build anything like the volume that we shall be called upon to build if affairs abroad do not go through as we should like.
Another important matter is the development of engines using oil fuel. Those engines are specifically developed for very long distance flights. All very large flying boats which have to fly long distances should be equipped with these engines. The consumption is so much less than that of the normal engine that they give the boat a range which would otherwise be impossible. Although it is eight years since I designed an engine we have not yet got a large flying boat equipped with oil engines for long distance flights. The fact shows that there is something wrong. We are not, surely, waiting for any other country to develop them, because we have the finest engine-builders and designers, and I do not quite know where the difficulty is which has caused this development to go on so exceedingly slowly. Wherever we stand with engines, we must in the end depend on the fuel that we are going to use, and greater steps should be taken to secure that we have a larger reserve and a more protected source from which we draw the oils. In taking steps to produce our own oil here we are making an advance, but we should take further steps to protect sources within the Empire and, if possible, carry on still more development work for the production of improved fuels, which will give higher economies and longer ranges. The whole question of a successful Air Force which will adequately defend the country in the conditions which have been so eloquently described by the Lord President of the Council depends upon the engines and, unless we take steps to broaden our base and further develop our capacities in this respect, we shall fail.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. JOHN WILMOT: The hon. Member has urged, very properly, that steps should be taken to provide the country with a supply of efficient engines as and when they may be required, but he did not indicate the lines that those steps should take. The demand for an increased Air Force, which is partly reflected in these Estimates, arises primarily from the fact that other nations are increasing their air services. A very large number of the engines used to propel foreign Air Forces are engines made in this country and, if the right hon. Gentleman would deal with this matter,
it would remove a great many misgivings that are held in the country in[...] that the supply of aeroplane engines to the British Government is almost exclusively from private firms. These private firms are only able to maintain their businesses and keep up their profits by not only supplying the British Air Ministry but by exporting aeroplane engines as well, and it seems to me, as a layman, and to a vast number of other people, to be a highly unwise arrangement that, in order to maintain the efficiency of our defence force, we are bound to supply foreign Powers with the same materials that we ourselves are buying.
Those people who are properly concerned for the defence of the country, aided by those who have a pecuniary interest in an increase in the supply of aeroplanes, bring to the notice of the Government the fact that our Air Force is insufficient to cope with possible attacks, having regard to the size of the Air Forces of foreign countries, and there begins the clamour which we have recently seen in the Press for an increase in the British Air Force based entirely upon the fact that foreign Air Forces have increased when, as a matter of fact, the foreign Air Forces have been increased by supplies from British factories, and those British factories very properly argue that they cannot maintain their efficiency on orders from the British Air Ministry alone. So we are in a vicious circle. Under the present arrangements, the Air Ministry cannot get efficient supplies unless it permits its private suppliers to export its products and, if a foreign Power buys the exports of British factories, it is argued that the British Air Force must be increased to meet the impending menace of a foreign Power which has been supplied by British factories. It seems to me to come right to this point, that it is the business of the Air Ministry to see that the supplies of aeroplanes and aeroplane engines are furnished from Government factories which are not permitted to export the same material abroad.

Mr. WHITESIDE: It is a very great advantage that we should export these engines because, in the event of a war occurring, they would have no spare parts, and they would have to get them from this country.

Mr. WILMOT: I do not know whether I am expected to take that interruption seriously. I am sure that it was meant as a joke. I think the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate the very difficult position that has arisen as a result of this export of aeroplane parts. One finds in the Library of this House magazines devoted to the technical side of aircraft construction advertising for sale to foreign Governments the very machines which they proudly boast have recently been purchased by the British Air Force, and then hon. Members get up and point to these foreign purchases and urge the right hon. Gentleman to increase his Estimates. It seems to me perfect lunacy that we should permit these exports to go on. I asked the President of the Board of Trade some days ago whether there was any system of control of these exports.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now getting out of order.

Mr. WILMOT: I merely intended to point to the fact that there is no possibility of limiting this under the present arrangements, and that I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us why it is that the Air Ministry, faced with this extremely serious situation, does not take steps to limit the improvements in British aircraft for the use of the British Government alone.

5.57 p.m.

Sir P. SASSOON: I am sure that the hon. Member will not expect me to follow him in his extremely interesting speech and develop this into a Debate on the private manufacture of arms. The fact that we export has nothing to do with our inability to get sufficient engines for our Air Force. We export engines, I presume, because foreign countries think they are the best in the world. It has nothing to do with the Air Ministry or the orders that we place for what we require. The hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Chorlton) really answered the hon. Member when he said that the basis of the manufacture of engines was not broad enough. My hon. Friend is an authority

on engine building and everything that pertains to it. He probably knows a great deal more about it than I do, but he also knows, because I told him in the speech in which I introduced the Estimates, that we were spending next year an extra £250,000 on new machines and engines, and that ought to be as satisfactory to him as it was unsatisfactory to the hon. Member who spoke last.

Mr. CHORLTON: There are only four firms that build engines.

Sir P. SASSOON: We are perfectly satisfied with the firms that are now building engines for us and we are not only satisfied that they are able to build up to our peace requirements but that in the event of a war or an emergency they will be perfectly capable of expansion, and there will not be the situation arising in the next war which was described by my hon. Friend of having to get engines from foreign countries. With regard to the question about compression ignition engines working with heavy oils, he asked why we have been so slow in developing. It is because development is difficult, and not because attention and concentration have not been devoted to it. I hope that in the near future those difficulties, which have faced other countries besides ourselves, will be overcome. My hon. Friend the Member for South Leeds (Mr. Whiteside) asked me whether I could assure him that it would be impossible for a foreign air force to attack London, or something of the kind. I do not think that there is any air force that could give complete immunity from any attack by bombers from any country, but it is obvious that if you have a strong, efficient and up-to-date air force you can intercept foreign bombers, and the fact that you have a strong air force makes it more unlikely that other countries will attack you.

Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

The House divided: Ayes, 271; Noes, 35.

Division No. 172.]
AYES.
[6.1 p.m.


Albery, Irving James
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Beaumont, Hn. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Belt, Sir Alfred L.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.


Apsley, Lord
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman


Aske, Sir Robert William
Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar
Blinded, James


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent. Dover)
Bateman, A. L.
Borodale, Viscount


Ba[...]llie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Beauchamp. Sir Brograve Campbell
Bossom, A. C.


Boulton, W. W.
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Raikes, Henry V. A. M.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Hamilton, Sir R.W. (Orkney & Z'tl'nd)
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Bracken, Brendan
Hanbury, Cecil
Rankin, Robert


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Rea, Walter Russell


Brass, Captain Sir William
Hartland, George A.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham


Broadbent, Colonel John
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Reid, William Allan (Derby)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Remer, John R.


Brown, Brig.-Gen. H. C. (Berks., Newb'y)
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)
Rickards, George William


Buchan, John
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Ropner, Colonel L.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hepworth, Joseph
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hills. Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Burnett, John George
Holdsworth, Herbert
Rothschild. James A. de


Burton, Colonel Henry Walter
Hope, Capt. Hon. A.O. J. (Aston)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Home, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Runge, Norah Cecil


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Horsbrugh, Florence
Russell, Albert (Kirkealdy)


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Howard, Tom Forrest
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Ca[...]orn, Arthur Cecil
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)


Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Samuel Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Cayzer, Mai. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chlppenham)
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Savery, Samuel Servington


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Scone, Lord


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.


Christie, James Archibald
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Clarry, Reginald George
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Ker, J. Campbell
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Klnc'dlne, C.)


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Smithers, Waldron


Cook, Thomas A.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George
Somervell, Sir Donald


Cooper, A. Duff
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Lees-Jones, John
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)


Cranborne, Viscount
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Levy, Thomas
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Lewis, Oswald
Spens, William Patrick


Cross, R. H.
Liddall, Walter S.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Klim'rnock)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Lindsay. Noel Ker
Steel-Maltland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Davison, Sir William Henry
Little, Graham, Sir Ernest
Stevenson, James


Denman. Hon. R. D.
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)


Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Storey, Samuel


Dick[...]e, John P.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Doran, Edward
Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Strauss, Edward A.


Duckworth, George A. V.
Mabane, William
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Duggan, Hubert John
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


Dunglass, Lord
McCorquodale, M. S.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Eastwood, John Francis
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Summersby, Charles H.


Eden, Robert Anthony
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Tate. Mavis Constance


Edmondson, Major A. J.
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E.A. (P'dd'gt 'n, S.)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Elmley, Viscount
Macquisten, Frederick Alexander
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Maltland, Adam
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Tree, Ronald


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Turton, Robert Hugh


Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Martin, Thomas B.
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


F[...]rmoy, Lord
Mayhew. Lieut.-Colonel John
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Milne, Charles
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Fox, Sir Gifford
Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour.


Fraser, Captain Ian
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wells, Sydney Richard


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Morris, Owen Tample (Cardiff, E.)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Gibson, Charles Granville
Morrison, William Shepherd
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Munro, Patrick
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Gledhill, Gilbert
Nall-Cain, Hon. Ronald
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Glossop, C. W. H.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Wise, Alfred R.


Goff, Sir Park
Nunn, William
Withers, Sir John James


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzle (Banff)


Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Patrick, Colin M.
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Pearson, William G.



Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Penny, Sir George
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Grigg, Sir Edward
Perkins, Walter R. D.
Major George Davies and Dr.


Grimston, R. V.
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)
Morris-Jones.


Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.



NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Mainwaring, William Henry


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Paling, Wilfred


Banfield, John William
Hicks, Ernest George
Parkinson, John Allen


Batey, Joseph
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Rathbone, Eleanor


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Buchanan, George
Kirkwood, David
Thorne, William James


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Lawson, John James
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Daggar, George
Leonard, William
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Logan, David Gilbert
Wilmot, John


Edwards, Charles
Lunn, William



Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
McEntee, Valentine L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
McGovern, John
Mr. G. Macdonald and Mr. John.


Groves, Thomas E.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



First Resolution read a Second time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

6.11 p.m.

Captain GUEST: I notice the presence this evening of the Lord President of the Council, and I want to be among those who tender to him sincere appreciation of the way in which he handled the Debate on the Air Estimates about 10 days ago. As one of the members of the Air Committee, who have followed, as best they can, the Debates on air matters, I should like to say that it is not our business to waste too much of the time of the House, because we may rest assured that within the next few weeks, should such a situation arise as was indicated by the Lord President of the Council, he will give to the House a further opportunity of discussing matters of air defence. Therefore, I shall restrict my remarks to a very limited area. The Vote which we have in front of us is for civil aviation, and the sum of £513,000 is granted for this Service. Several of us at different times have tried to draw the attention of the House and the country to the extraordinarily small Vote which is devoted to what you might describe as the amateur effort, and I think that I am right in saying that the amateur effort ought not to receive the cold shoulder. Out of the £513,000, 86 per cent. is granted to a great organisation, and the remaining 14 per cent. finds its way into the pockets of the small light aeroplane clubs.
I do not know how often this subject has been raised in the House, but every time the chance occurs I feel that it is one's duty to draw attention not only to the tremendous efforts which light aeroplane clubs have made, but to the difficulties under which they labour. It is in many cases a great difficulty to find
landing grounds, and even with difficulty that they find a place in which to house their machines, and it is with greater difficulty still that they collect the little nucleus of men and women to help to form a club. Many hon. Members know as well as I do—and I have been round most of the clubs—that it is perfectly wonderful how they have kept themselves alive with very little help from the State. Certain organs of the Press decry the light aeroplane movement, and it would be a great advantage if the Minister in charge of the Vote could give his opinion of the value to this country of light aeroplane clubs. He gave us a figure a few weeks ago of something like 2,800 as representing the "A" licence holders in this country. The "A" licence is the first licence which anybody obtains. It can be obtained by anyone between the ages of 18 and 75, and it is something very wonderful that persons of these ages should be able to obtain them. After you have eliminated the extremely young and the extremely old, there is no doubt that in the middle of that block there is very valuable potential war material, and to have them described as the halt, the maimed and the blind, almost indicating that they are those who spend their time up against the bar, is not a patriotic expression for a well-known aeroplane paper to use. But such is the discredit poured upon those clubs that they find it almost impossible to carry on.
If it had not been—and I say this seriously—for the patriotic and tremendous efforts of famous patrons of the air, notably Lord Wakefield, there would be very few of these clubs in existence to-day. I saw him present an aeroplane to Nairobi, of all places, 5,000 miles away from the homeland. It has been only by the most strenuous efforts of individual generous people that the clubs have survived. Therefore, there is an opportunity for the Minister to take
this matter more definitely in hand and say to them, "We appreciate your efforts and will squeeze out some more pennies and help you with every licence you obtain, and we will not have you looked upon as the halt, the maimed and the blind. I pass from that because many other hon. Members, no doubt, wish to speak, but I want to add one sentence. I tried to raise it on the Debate on the Air Estimates, but not with much success. Could not these same "A" licence pilots be allowed to continue their training, at no cost to themselves, on Service machines? I can see that there would be a certain amount of difficulty in the organisation; it would mean the provision of a few Service machines and a few Service engineers to keep the machines in good order, but I feel certain that Government money would be well spent if in the process of training a man for an "A" licence he could be trained into becoming a potential military pilot. I pass from that subject to another.
I view with the greatest anxiety the new agreement which has been reached between the railway companies and Imperial Airways. I will not say as much on the subject as I said 10 days ago, but I do deplore the step that has been taken. The answer which the Undersecretary gave to me on the subject was rather hastily given and I cannot describe it as satisfactory. In my private capacity I come into touch with many small firms who have the greatest difficulty in raising £15,000, £20,000 or £30,000, in the hope of running a small aircraft business and making a profit, and if we destroy them we shall foe losing a valuable national asset. Whether they could be drawn into a scheme, or whether in some way their individual efforts could be absorbed into a national movement, remains to be seen. I urge the Minister not to look at the matter merely by saying that the railway companies have stepped into the breach and that Imperial Airways can manage to equip the aerodromes. I hope he will give the matter his attention with a view to strengthening our air services as a whole.
There is one further point to which I would refer, although it is not quite relevant to civil aviation, but relates to aviation as a whole. I read in the Press the other day that Germany intends to
become air-minded. Under the Treaty of Versailles they have a loophole by which they can put into the air numbers of potential war pilots. If it is Germany's intention to become a great nation in the air, surely it is up to us not to be left behind. Not many generations ago the Briton looked upon himself as the ruler of the seas. I hope that airmen, whether in the Service or in civil aviation, and all others who are interested in aviation, will say: "We will set ourselves the same standard that was set by the blue-water school in days gone by."

6.18 p.m.

Sir EDWARD GRIGG: There are two points to which I called attention at a late hour on the Committee stage to which I should like to refer. The Undersecretary promised that he would make some reference to them on the Report stage, and in anticipation of what he may have to say I should like to add a little to what I then said on the subject. The first point is the proportion in which the subsidy paid to Imperial Airways for the African service is divided between the Colonial territories concerned, the Union of South Africa and ourselves. Since I spoke on the Committee stage the Under-Secretary has been good enough to let me know that in addition to the subsidy which we pay directly for the African service we also pay a subsidy for the service between England and Egypt, and that half of that may be quite fairly added to our subsidy on the whole African service. I accept that as an addition to our contribution to this service as a whole.
Nevertheless, the proportions seem to me to be improper and quite unjust. It works out with that addition, in the following way: five small Colonies pay £52,000 between them—and they are small Colonies whose combined revenues scarcely amount to one-tenth of one-tenth of the revenues of this country—the Union of South Africa, £94,000, and Great Britain, with the addition to which I have referred, £100,000. I am bound to say and I say it with all the force at my command that these proportions seem to me to be quite indefensible. In the case of Kenya, with a revenue of under £2,500,000, after certain deductions for railways have been taken away, the payment is £15,000 a year. If His Majesty's Government in
this country contributed in the same proportion we should be paying over £5,000,000 a year. That seems to me to be an improper division between a very small territory and this great country, which carries the main responsibility.
There are two standpoints from which this division of expenditure seems to me to be wrong. In the first place, there is the question of justice to dependencies of that kind. We often hear in this House that the Imperial Government should maintain control of the expenditure in States like that. We often hear complaints in this House that the settler is deriving more advantage from expenditure than other races and that the arrangement made are unfair to the natives. I think the House is right in keeping a very close watch over matters of that kind, but if we are going to keep a watch upon our brothers in Kenya we should also keep a watch upon ourselves, and the responsibility which lies upon us in regard to a territory like Kenya seems to be badly discharged when we allow such a sum as that which I have quoted to be taken from the taxpayers of that country as compared with the contribution by the taxpayers here. It has to be remembered that this expenditure affects a very large number of native African taxpayers. Far more African taxpayers than white taxpayers are affected by this subsidy, and I say that this proportion in which the subsidy is divided is an exploitation of the African taxpayer for the benefit of the taxpayer here.
Therefore, I hope the Government will look very closely into the division of the expenditure and endeavour to redress it next year. There are two ways in which it can be redressed, and that brings me to the only other point on which I wish to say a word. It may be redressed by reducing their share or by increasing ours. In my opinion, very strongly, it should be redressed by increasing ours. I believe that the African taxpayer is getting value for his contribution to this service, but he would be getting much greater value if we paid our proper share. The service should be more frequent and should be faster. There are many things which could be done to develop the service if we were paying a just share. We are demanding from them an unfair payment and we are keeping the service inadequate because we ourselves pay so much less than we should be called upon
to pay. This is a matter that concerns not only the efficiency of Imperial communications, but it is, as the whole House knows, an immensely important matter as affecting the reservoir of pilots and mechanics in the matter of defence.
Certain figures which have already been given are worth repeating. While we are paying only a paltry £500,000 for the development of civil aviation, France is paying something very near £2,000,000 and the United States well over £4,000,000. Those figures are worth bearing in mind. At the present time when we look at the number of convertible air liners possessed by the various Powers, France has 269, Germany 177, Italy 77, and Britain 32. I should be very glad to know from the Under-Secretary if these figures are in any way related to the facts and whether in that case he is satisfied with the proportion we hold of convertible air liners at the present time. The inadequacy of this Vote for civil aviation is only part of the inadequacy of the whole Vote under certain circumstances which we all hope may not arise but which nevertheless seem only too likely to arise. Because that is the case and because that possibility is always there I express the hope that before very long the Government will come to the House again with a clear statement of its intentions and its policy with regard to our position in the air.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. PERKINS: On two previous occasions I have raised the question of the subsidy for the light aeroplane clubs, but I have not yet been lucky enough to obtain an answer from the Under-Secretary. To-night, however, as he is in a very good temper I hope that, at long last and for the third time of asking, I shall be lucky enough to obtain an answer. We are paying out every year £16,000 to light aeroplane clubs. Is that expenditure necessary? If it is necessary are we getting full value for our money? I claim that in this country the best and the most efficient light aeroplane clubs are the ones which have no help or subsidy from the Government. Let me mention three that exist in the London area. There is the one at Heston, another at Hatfield and the one at Brooklands, which has been going for many years. Not one of these clubs receives any subsidy whatever, yet they
are going ahead by leaps and bounds. If these aeroplane clubs can thrive without a subsidy, it is only fair to argue that the other clubs should thrive without a subsidy, and that our money should not be wasted. If however, the Air Ministry is determined to pay out this money, could they not reconsider the policy of paying out subsidies to anyone who comes along, just because they want to fly? These people would be of very little use to us in this country if it came to war.
I suggest that the Government would be well advised to copy the principle which has been adopted in France. The French Government subsidise not the individual pilot but the man who is prepared to buy and maintain an aeroplane. Therefore, if the Undersecretary could see his way to subsidise private owners in this country we should get much better return for the £16,000 which we are now giving. In the first place, we should have a number, a very small number it is true, of really efficient pilots, which we are not now getting from the light aeroplane clubs. In the second place, we should have a considerable number of new aeroplanes being bought, and that in turn would help the aircraft industry. I should like to make another suggestion, although it is very risky to make suggestions to the Air Ministry, because any suggestion that one makes is always automatically turned down.
I hope the House will agree with me when I say that the British air mails are the disgrace of the world. They are the slowest in the world. I would suggest a way in which we can speed up the mail to India and Australia. I would not interfere with the first part of the mail. I suggest that Imperial Airways should carry the mail as far as Egypt, as they do at the present time, and that onwards the Royal Air Force now stationed in Egypt, Transjordania. Iraq and India should be allowed to carry the mails on from Egypt to India. That could be done once a week in one machine as part of ordinary patrol duty. They would have to fly day and night. If that was done there would be three definite advantages. In the first place, we should have a dozen or more really fast mail carriers, which we have not got now, machines capable of doing 180 to 200 miles per hour. These machines, if we
were so unfortunate as to be involved in war, could be used out there for patrol duty and would release the Service machines in those areas. In the second place, we should get a great deal of really useful practise for our Service pilots in these areas. I may be told that this has been adopted in America and that they succeeded in killing a dozen pilots in the first month. I am not suggesting that we should rush into it in the same way as the Americans, but that we should train our pilots gradually in the task of flying day and night in all weathers. The third advantage, and probably the most important, is that the people in India and Australia would get their mails one, two, or perhaps three days, earlier.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. SIMMONDS: I feel it incumbent upon me to raise a question of which I have given private notice to the Undersecretary of State for Air with reference to the Committee on the control of private flying and other civil aviation questions; which are borne on this Vote. This Committee was appointed last year with the following terms of reference:
To examine the requirements of present air navigation regulations, with particular reference to those governing private flying, in such matters as certificates and airworthiness, and to consider whether and in what respects the present system controlled by the Air Ministry should be modified by way of devolution or otherwise, and make recommendations in regard to these and cognate questions which may be remitted to them by the Secretary of State.
There has apparently been a very wide interpretation of these terms of reference, because it is generally understood in the aeronautical world in this country that the type of committee to control private flying is more or less the substance of the work to be carried out. But it is quite clear that the Committee is considering quite a different point, and that is whether civil aviation should not in fact be completely separated from the Air Ministry and put under the aegis of some other Department. I cannot think that the Under-Secretary of State when this Committee was appointed had in mind this particular point, because he has always taken a very jealous attitude on this subject. He says that "civil aviation is our child, and we do not want to see it weaned." A few weeks ago in
discussing this matter in the House he concluded with the word:
To sum up, I do not believe that there-is any theoretical case for the divorce of civil aviation from the Air Ministry. I am quite certain that such divorce is a practical impossibility, and is likely to remain so for a long time to come."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1934; col. 2039, Vol. 286.]
I am therefore further established in my view that when the Air Ministry appointed this Committee they had no idea that this question would be raised, otherwise the speech of the Undersecretary of State and his attitude, to say the least of it, would be discourteous to the Committee and alien to his wonted conduct of public business. I therefore put a question to him this afternoon in the following terms:
To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will state the number of members of the committee on civil aviation under the chairmanship of Lord Gorell who are directors of companies in receipt of Air Ministry contracts; and the total value of the contracts received by each of such companies during the current financial year.
The Under-Secretary was good enough to tell me that there are two members of that Committee who are directors of companies in receipt of Air Ministry contracts, but he declined in the public interest to tell the House the value of the contracts received by these companies. Perhaps I may do him the compliment of assuring him that these contracts in both cases are quite substantial. There is the other point, that one of these gentlemen is specifically on the Committee to represent the Society of British Aircraft Contractors, an association representing almost all companies in receipt of Air Ministry contracts, which in the present financial year amount to £6,000,000. We, therefore, have this position. On the one hand, the Air Ministry attitude upon the question of withdrawing civil aviation from the Air Ministry—a definite refusal to contemplate such a move—and, on the other hand, we have these two gentlemen, under the most specific obligations to their shareholders who are enjoying substantial Air Ministry contracts, who are invited to condemn the Air Ministry policy in the report of the Committee. I submit that this is a most unfortunate position for these gentlemen to be placed
in, and, further, I think it is definitely opposed to the public interest.
What, therefore, in these circumstances ought to be done? Let me say that I think these circumstances have arisen through the transitional stages under which the terms of reference have passed. As I have said, I do not think that the Under-Secretary had any idea that the Committee would deal with this question, but we have to consider the facts of the case, and, in the circumstances, I suggest that there are one or two courses open to the Under-Secretary. He can either let the Air Ministry advise this Committee that the question of the separation of civil aviation from the Air Ministry is definitely excised from the terms of reference, or release these two gentlemen from the obligation of signing the report. I make no suggestion, not the least implication, of any improper conduct by omission or commission on the part of the Under-Secretary for Air or of these two gentlemen, for both of whom I have the highest regard, but, on the other hand, I believe that it is a matter which the House will feel must be properly adjusted and, therefore, I trust that hon. Members will consider that I have done right in bringing it to their notice.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. EVERARD: The hon. Member for Duddeston (Mr. Simmonds) will not expect me to follow him into the question of the Gorell Committee, but I must say that he does the committee less than justice if he thinks that any personal considerations will carry any weight with people who are there in a judicial capacity to decide questions which will affect the whole of civil aviation, on which they have personal and particular knowledge.

Mr. SIMMONDS: I definitely accepted that position. I say that when gentlemen are appointed to a committee of this nature it is unfair to ask them to accept conflicting loyalties.

Mr. EVERARD: The hon. Member should look at it from the other point of view. Obviously, the people who have the greatest knowledge of the construction of aircraft must presumably take part in the deliberations of such a committee. I cannot see how it is possible to set up any committee to go into any subject if no person with any particular knowledge
of the subject is to be appointed, and I cannot agree with the hon. Member on that point. Nor can I agree with the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins) on the subject of light aeroplane clubs. He has overlooked the primary function of the light aeroplane club. Its function is not to help wealthy people in this country who can afford to pay the high rates for learning to fly, who can buy their own aeroplanes and own their own aerodromes; the whole purpose of the subsidy is to help those people who are less well off. The purpose is to subsidise a lower rate for learning to fly and, therefore, give a bigger opportunity to all sections of the community to learn to fly. The hon. Member is entirely wrong when he suggests that we should take up the aristocratic method of France, which is really a method of subsidising private owners, who ought to be able to buy their own aeroplanes with their own money and fly at their own expense.
The system of helping light aeroplane clubs is an estimable one and I entirely agree with the hon. and gallant Member for the Drake Division (Captain Guest). I have brought this matter up myself on previous occasions, and during the Committee stage I asked the Under-Secretary whether it would be possible to extend this subsidy system. Hon. Members will see a note to this Vote to the effect that the grants to light aeroplane clubs are estimated at a lower total than allowed for in 1933. That is a move in the wrong direction. If we are going to train more pilots, a matter of vital importance to this country, then the training of pilots should be open to every section of the community. If we are going to do that then it is clear that there must be something wrong somewhere if this year the grant to light aeroplane clubs is lower than it was last year. I am going to ask the Under-Secretary whether he can give me this information. Will he tell me how many light aeroplane clubs there are in England, how many of that number are receiving a subsidy, and whether a smaller number of clubs are receiving a subsidy than was the case a year ago? If that is so, then I think it is an argument that we should open this subsidy to clubs which formerly have not had it. The Under-Secretary will no doubt agree that a great deal of good work has been done by these clubs and, therefore, it
would be wise indeed to consider an extension of the subsidy to those clubs which have not had it before. It has the effect undoubtedly of reducing the costs of learning to fly, and it is the cost which stops the majority of young men learning to become pilots.
If everyone was instructed free of charge we should have thousands of pilots willing to come forward and learn. We cannot do that, but by an extension of this subsidy scheme we can get a lot of people being taught to fly with a small expenditure of public money; which is what the majority of this House desire be see. If the Under-Secretary will give this matter his careful consideration I am sure that the clubs will endeavour to improve their instructional methods and get a larger number of pilots through. I do not like the fiat-rate subsidy. I should like to sec a larger amount of subsidy given to those people who might be of use in time of war or national emergency. I do not think that a club ought to receive the same subsidy for the woman or the man who has passed the age for war service as would be given for the training of the younger generation. That matter might receive consideration in any new arrangement of the subsidy. Whether it can be done or not, I am certain that we are taking a retrogade step in devoting a smaller amount of money to this most essential service.

6.46 p.m.

Captain JAMES MacANDREW: As I understand it, the Debate has gone on the line of increasing the subsidies for various forms of aviation. I have no doubt that it is the intention of the right hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State to resist as far as possible the increase of the subsidies to various forms of aircraft. I do not wish to mention light aeroplane clubs, but with regard to the air transport services, I think the Government would be well advised to resist an increase of the subsidy. I understand that the subsidy they receive now is £561,000. I understand also that the only company that receives the subsidy for aerial transport is Imperial Airways. I have here the balance-sheet of the Imperial Airways Company. I see that the issued capital is £649,080. The subsidy, therefore, is a very big one indeed compared with the issued capital. It is round about 86 per cent. To pour
out more money in that way would not be a very desirable thing to do. The hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet) asked the other day what it costs to send a "Times" newspaper to India, and the answer was that the cost was round about 7s. 6d. But that is what it costs the individual who posts it. When you take the question of the subsidy into consideration the cost immediately becomes a very much bigger figure.
I myself did flying, but I do not do any now, and I have no intention of ever doing any again. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] For very good reasons, but I do not want to retard the cause of civil aviation by giving them. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins) mentioned small aviation clubs thriving without a subsidy. It seems to me that if aviation ever does develop and become a really profitable proposition from the civil point of view, it will start off in a small way and gradually develop from that. I understand that there are some people in the country now who started in a very small way and have been able to develop commercial aviation without a subsidy at all. If that be so it is a tiling that should be allowed to develop, and if in any way subsidised competitors are going to hinder these people, I think it would be a great mistake, at any rate, to increase those subsidies.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. LYONS: First of all I would join with my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Everard), who himself has done so much for the development of civil aviation, in expressing the hope that we may see this Vote increased, because the development of this aviation service is without any question of vital national and commercial importance. I rose to speak about the Gorell Committee, to which reference has been made. I understand that the committee has been sitting for some time. It must sit, of course, in camera, because of the matters of national importance that it has to discuss. I hope we may have another declaration from the Minister that there will be no divorcement of any kind between the Air Ministry and civil aviation for any length of time which we can now conceive as likely. I am aware of what the Minister said, a fortnight ago, and I hope we shall hear from him a definite statement that
once and for all it is the considered view of the Government to continue control by the Air Ministry of all kinds of civil aviation.
This is indeed a very small Vote when one considers the vast amount of work still to be done in this country before we reach a reasonably efficient state of civil aviation. I would like to see air services from North to South extended rapidly. I hope that no part of the plan for the maintenance or speeding up of these services will be allowed to be checked by the vested interests of any railway company. Railway travelling to a large extent has not moved with the times. It has become obsolete largely through the bad management and bad services of the railway companies, and there is growing up in the aeroplane services a cheap, safe and rapid means of transport between distant points which have no railway service of any kind befitting the needs of the commercial community of England.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will bring home to local authorities all over the country the great value of the establishment of municipal aerodromes. There are some aerodromes. One in particular, which is about to be opened in the constituency which I have the honour to represent at Leicester, I believe, will give a lead to the country in the amenities that it will offer. But I would like it to be brought home to local authorities what a great need there is to-day, not as an experiment and not as a luxury but as a development of the greatest importance, for more municipal aerodromes. I would go further and express the hope that it will never be thought right to encourage the maintenance of such aerodromes only for those who are using the air services. I want to see the people encouraged to go to the aerodromes, even if they go with no idea of flying, even if they have never seen an aeroplane. I want to get them there in good surroundings. The aerodromes should not be reserved for aeroplane travellers or aeroplane clubs. I want to see the whole of the people drawn to the aerodromes, to sit there, to watch, to inspect, to become air-minded, and to see that interest in aeroplanes is not limited to one class of the community.
I generally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins). He is almost invariably right, but I hope he will allow me to disagree with him
entirely in his observations about subsidies. I think it would be a very good thing if some differentiation were made between the grant to female flyers and that made to males, because the women who learn to fly cannot be of the same benefit to the community in an emergency as the men who learn to fly. To say that because Hatfield and Heston have triumphed over difficulties without any subsidy there should be no subsidies for other aeroplane clubs, is entirely wrong and a misconceived idea. Neither of them wants any praise from me to-night. These aerodromes have risen in remarkably short time into excellent flying grounds, and they serve an excellent purpose. They are efficient and remarkably good aerodromes. But there are circumstances surrounding them which do not apply to many other aerodromes in the country. I ask the Under-Secretary to tell the House and the country that the subsidies to light aeroplane clubs will continue whenever those clubs qualify for the grant.
I think it is open to criticism that there is an insufficient means of transportation between the landing grounds at the aerodromes and the destinations to which travellers wish to go. The hon. Member for Stroud mentioned Heston. It is only a few weeks ago that I had the advantage of travelling in an aeroplane owned by my hon. Friend the Member for Melton. We came from Leicester to Heston, 87 miles, in 45 or 46 minutes, but we found at Heston a difficulty in getting to this House. That journey took nearly as long as the journey from Leicester to Heston. It should not be so. In a year or two's time, as air travel gets faster, we shall see the Great West Road more congested than now in the day time. There should be some ready means of getting from an aerodrome to the place in city or town which one desires to reach. It may be that some day one or other of the three great railway termini, Euston, St. Pancras and King's Cross, will become wholly unnecessary. Then it should not be long before we see a really central landing ground or aerodrome to serve this great Metropolis in one of those places, right in the thick of the traffic, bringing us immediately into the district which we want to reach.
Then there is the question of bad lighting of aerodromes, which is a source of
great complaint and great delay, and may be a source of great danger. There is no public aerodrome North of London which is properly lighted for night flying. I would like to see some alteration of that. We must not be dependent on daylight or on weather. The regular service that we want to get must not be checked because of bad weather or bad lighting Electricity has developed in this country by leaps and bounds in recent years. There are plenty of idle hands willing to get to work to lay down electricity anywhere in the country. There should be no complaint in future, therefore, of the bad lighting of public aerodromes. What can be done by private owners can be done by public aerodromes.
I hope it will be within the province of my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has this subject so much at heart and is interested in the development of aviation in all its branches, to recommend some kind of quick and cheap transportation between the provincial cities which are now encouraging aviation, and the landing grounds and aerodromes. I do not see why we should not have light railway lines for short distances, the engines driven by Diesel engines, using British fuel and taking from the aerodrome, by rapid transit, those who descend on to the landing-ground to the various provincial cities to which they desire to go. In these days cross-country distances can be accomplished by light aviation traffic more cheaply, as safely as and very much more quickly than any other forms of transport, the railways included. If these difficulties are removed, and if we once do all we can to bring aviation within the reach of everybody—to get the people air-minded—we shall have done a great thing to help this country in attaining the leadership which it must undoubtedly have in all aviation matters.

7.1 p.m.

Sir P. SASSOON: The House has listened with great interest to the many varied fields, all of interest, over which my hon. Friend the Member for East Leicester (Mr. Lyons) has just roamed. As I have been reminded by several speakers this afternoon that certain points were raised at the end of the previous Debate to which I promised I would reply on this occasion, I will try to dovetail my answers into those I will
give to the questions put to me to-day, as they were more or less on the same subjects and were put to me by more or less the same hon. Members.
In reply to the question raised by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Captain Guest), it is an encouragement not only to the Air Ministry but to all those interested in aviation to hear an expression of the continued interest in civilian flying which is shown on all hands. He raised the question at the end of the last Debate, emphasising again and again the amount allocated in these Estimates to civilian aviation. I thought it was rather unkind of my right hon. and gallant Friend to contrast the £513,000 in these Estimates with the £1,000,000 which he said he found when he went to the Air Ministry. Stated in that way it gives perhaps rather an incorrect impression. The figure in 1921, which was actually £880,000, included provision for meteorological services, which now appears in Vote 9 at £144,000, and £150,000 for airship development. If allowances are made for these two items, the comparable figures are £656,000 and £730,000. Nor is that the whole story. The actual expenditure in 1921 on civil aviation amounted only to £400,000, and in the following year, when my right hon. and gallant Friend was Secretary of State for Air, the provision, excluding meteorological services, was reduced to £300,000.

Captain GUEST: My only object was to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that if public opinion was prepared to support the House of Commons to the extent which it did in those days, how much more ready should it be to support it to-day.

Sir P. SASSOON: I was only pointing out that there were in that £880,000 several items which we are to-day including in a different Vote. I fully sympathise with all those hon. Members who would like to see a larger expenditure on civil aviation. After what I have said, I think hon. Members will agree that I am not putting it too high when I claim that £513,000 is not a bad advance on £300,000, considering that the need for economy still subsists. That the Air Ministry, if not unmindful of the needs of civil aviation is, I think, shown
by the fact that this year the total Air expenditure is down by £1,000,000 on 1931, whereas the expenditure on civil aviation is up by 10 per cent. on that year. I can assure hon. Members that the Air Ministry is just as anxious as they are to see civil aviation fully and further developed. If, however, I may say so frankly, we should rather, instead of complaining about the insufficiency of the sums spent on civil aviation, congratulate ourselves on the very good value which we obtain for the not insignificant sum for which we ask.
The subsidy to Imperial Airways is one-tenth of the corresponding American expenditure; it is one-quarter of the French and one-half of the German and Italian expenditure, yet with that moderate subsidy I said that we had attained commercial results that no other country has been able to reach.

Captain MacANDREW: Is that subsidy £561,000?

Sir P. SASSOON: This year it is about £400,000.

Mr. LYONS: Was it the same amount last year?

Sir P. SASSOON: I could not say offhand. I think it is increased this year, but I should not like to give false figures. May I give the figures afterwards?

Mr. LYONS: Certainly.

Sir P. SASSOON: Imperial Airways are now operating regularly, successfully and punctually nearly 14,000 miles of route.

Mr. CHORLTON: And operating very slowly. In comparison with other countries we are the slowest.

Sir P. SASSOON: I would not accept that statement absolutely. Certainly, in essential services such as mails there are machines in other countries which are faster than ours as a whole, but we carry our passengers safely and comfortably to their destinations, and, on the whole, those who travel by Imperial Airways are well satisfied with what they get. Compared with these 14,000 miles which Imperial Airways fly, the United States alone flies a bigger mileage than is operated over the British Empire. As hon. Members have asked whether it is proposed to increase that mileage during the coming year, perhaps the House will bear with me if I give a few figures illustrating the progress which has been made
since 1929. The route mileage has increased by 150 per cent.; the actual miles flown on regular services have gone up by 100 per cent.; the number of passengers carried has gone up by 90 per cent.; and the volume of air traffic in mails has gone up by 70 per cent. Considering that during the last 2½ years we have been operating under great economic difficulties, that is a record of which we may be proud. Nevertheless, although we are proud of that record during the last five years, we hope to do much better over the next five years. If the tree is justified by its fruits, then our policy with regard to commercial air transport is justified. While Imperial Airways is able to show a small modest profit to its shareholders, all other continental services, despite far larger subsidies, have shown losses and even very heavy losses. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and it is significant that the Germans have, in the last year or two, copied our policy of giving financial assistance to one strong operating company. France followed suit last year with her new combined air undertaking, and it is reported that Italy has recently taken a similar decision.
The hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) raised the point about the subsidy between here find Africa, and the proportion which is borne. As I explained to him, we pay a great deal in subsidy to get the mail as far as Africa, and that has, of course, to be taken into consideration. He puts his point with great force, and nobody knows better than he does the situation out there. I assure him that, when the matter comes up, all the very important points he has raised will receive full consideration. The hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Perkins) said that he thought that I looked in a good temper this evening. I do not know whether he feels in a good temper; I certainly could not say that he does not look in a good temper. According to him, the Air Ministry have never received suggestions, the mails are very slow, and light aeroplane clubs are a pure waste of money. I am glad that some of the speakers were able to meet a number of his contentions about the light aeroplane clubs.
The hon. Member for Melton (Mr. Everard) drew attention to the small sum of £16,000. The explanation of that comparatively small sum is, as many hon.
Members know, due to the position of National Flying Services, Limited. As this club had not been able to fulfil its contract, we were not able to make payments, but we are perfectly ready to subsidise any of its component units as long as they reconstitute themselves as ordinary flying clubs on a basis whereby they are entitled to claim subsidy. I hope that the House, with the exception of the hon. Member for Stroud, will be glad to hear that the Air Ministry is sufficiently satisfied with the progress of the light aeroplane club movement to be re solved on its extension.

Captain GUEST: Hear, hear!

Sir P. SASSOON: I should like to emphasise and to echo the remark that came from behind, by saying what a tremendous success the light aeroplane club has been. Apart from its attraction to people who are air-minded, and who understand aircraft, and apart from supplying a reservoir of people who can fly in the country, it is the only means by which the man-in-the-street can learn to fly an aeroplane. As was extremely well put by the hon. Member behind me earlier in the evening, it is a purely democratic movement, which has been extremely successful as far as its expansion is concerned. I cannot give any complete details beyond saying that we are contemplating increasing the overhead numbers of clubs that are able to receive subsidy. The number is 25, and in due course we shall be ready to receive applications from responsible organisations of amateur status which are desirous of being included in this movement.
In connection with this object, I should like to refer further to (he point raised by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Thanet (Captain Balfour) and the right hon. and gallant Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth, who suggested that light aeroplane club pilots should be allowed to fly Service aircraft. There is, of course, nothing to prevent members of light aeroplane clubs from being enrolled in the Reserve, where in due course they will receive training on Service aircraft. For many reasons, which I should not like to elaborate at the present time, we are not anxious for light aeroplane clubs themselves to be given a military flavour. We are building up a reserve of pilots in quite another way,
and we contemplate an extension and expansion of the Reserve upon lines which will give direct encouragement to civilian aviation in that candidates for the Reserve will receive at initio training in civilian schools.
Before leaving the subject of civilian aviation, I should like briefly to refer to a point made by the hon. Member for the Duddeston Division of Birmingham (Mr. Simmonds) at the end of the Debate last week in the well-informed speech which the House always expects from him, which contained many points with which I am in agreement. One of these was that I was somewhat in error in pointing out the closeness of the contact between research in civil and military flying. In the circumstances it is my hon. Friend who is insufficiently informed. Even in America they have come to realise that there is so much common ground between military and civil flying research that they have instituted special co-ordinating measures by means of a joint body which is called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Is not my right hon. Friend doing me an injustice? Although there may be a co-ordinating body, it is yet the fact that the two aspects are kept separate and there is no suggestion of amalgamating them.

Sir P. SASSOON: Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to finish what I was saying. Even if what he says is true, that the system over there is so different from our own, I do not think he will say that it is much more successful. As far as this co-ordinating committee is concerned the latest reports show that it has now proved inadequate in practice and that the President of the United States is contemplating yet further measures of unification of commercial and military flying research. My hon. Friend the Member for Duddeston made the suggestion that civil aviation should be put under a Ministry of Communications with the mercantile marine and the railways. I do not know what would happen to civil aviation, this tender nursling, between those two vast organisations. I think it would be like the little pig in the litter which is jostled away by his elder relatives from all possible sources of nutriment. I do not think it would have any chance at all.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Will not my right hon. Friend agree that I suggested that there should be Under-Secretaries for each of the three different aspects of transport under a Minister of Communications and I think the House will agree with me that if my right hon. Friend were Under-Secretary for civil air transport there would be no need to fear for the welfare of the little pig to which he refers.

Sir P. SASSOON: I think I have definitely shown that research as between civil and military aviation is so important that it is difficult to separate the two. There is another point of contact between them in regard to research matters. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) who raised the question of the dangers to pilots caused by electricity cables. That is a danger which has been brought home to us in very tragic circumstances and to which the Air Ministry has been giving much attention and concern. The desirability of adequately marking high tension cables is obvious. The difficulty is to find a system which is safe and at the same time satisfactory. A system of lighting was recently installed at Horn-church, one of our service aerodromes and large-sized lanterns each containing four 60-watt red lamps were placed on the apex of each pylon. The cost is about £130 per pylon and the maintenance costs about £5 a year. The difficulty is that even the actual maintenance involves a good deal of risk. Hon. Members well see that this method is not being lost sight of but that it is not so easy to deal with as might appear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Duddeston also raised this afternoon a point affecting the position of certain members of the Gorell Committee in relation to the question of whether civil aviation should remain under the Air Ministry or not. I would merely remark that the chairman of the committee is of course responsible for the matter included in the committee's report and no one else and I have no knowledge myself of its probable contents. I may however say that my Noble Friend has not remitted this particular question to the Committee and does not regard it as falling within their terms of reference. I do not know, therefore, what justification my hon. Friend has for assuming that it will be dealt with in the report. In any
event my hon. Friend is surely not suggesting that any of those Gentlemen who have so public-spiritedly consented to serve on this Committee would be in any way influenced in what they may or may not report by the fact that firms with which they are connected hold contracts with the Air Ministry. If he is, I for my part, cannot for a moment accept a suggestion so derogatory to those concerned; if he is not, I am afraid I cannot follow his point at all.

Mr. SIMMONDS: I specifically pointed out when I spoke on this subject that I thought it was placing these Gentlemen in an unfair position in the circumstances, and I know that a large number of hon. Members feel with me on that point. If my right hon. Friend cannot see the further implication I can only regret it.

REPORT [15th March.]

Resolutions reported:

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1934.

"1. That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 149,500, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at Home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1936.

2. That a sum, not exceeding £9,478,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Pay, etc., of His Majesty's Army at Home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

3. That a sum, not exceeding £3,303,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Lands, including military and civilian staff and other charges in connection therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

4. That a sum, not exceeding £948,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Miscellaneous Effective Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

5. That a sum, not exceeding £3,496,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Rewards, Half-Pay, Retired Pay, Widows' Pensions and other Non-effective Charges for Officers, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

6. That a sum, not exceeding £4,465,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; of Out-Pensions, Rewards for Distinguished Service, Widows' Pensions, and other Non-Effective Charges for Warrant Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers. Men, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

7. That a sum, not exceeding £221,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation, Compensation and Additional Allowances, Gratuities, Injury Grants, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

7.22 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: Before this Vote passes, I wish to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office some questions as to the new defence corps, the establishment of which he announced on Thursday. I do not know whether it was dut to the charm of the hon. Gentleman's presentation of his case or to the fact that he announced the setting up of this corps among a multitude of graver matters with which he had to deal, but it certainly seems to have attracted more attention from the public outside than it did in this House. I gather that this new defence corps is to be a branch of the Territorial Forces.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think the matter to which the hon. Gentleman is referring comes under Vote A. Is it not a matter which should be raised on the Vote dealing with the Territorial Army?

Mr. LAWSON: If that is your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, I shall follow it.

Mr. SPEAKER: Yes, I think that is so. Vote A is concerned only with the number of all ranks in the regular Army.

Mr. LAWSON: Then I shall allow that matter to pass for the moment and ask my question when the opportunity arises later. I should also like to ask the hon. Gentleman a question about the granting of commissions. I had an answer on Thursday to the effect that out of 611 commissions granted during the last 12 months 25 were granted to non-commissioned officers through cadet colleges, and 46 to warrant officers or
quartermasters. It appears to me that the high educational standard to which rankers now attain carries the implication that more commissions should be available for them. It is only a logical development of the improved education of the ranker that he should have further opportunities, and these would be an incentive to a still greater improvement in educational standards in the Army. I understand there is a good deal of dissatisfaction at the slow advance in some regiments.

Mr. SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but I do not think that this matter either comes within Vote A.

Mr. LAWSON: Would it not be permissible to deal now with the allotment of those commissions that are granted?

Mr. SPEAKER: This Vote as the hon. Gentleman will see is confined to the actual number of commissions allotted. The hon. Gentleman can say that there should not have been so many allotted,

or that more should have been allotted, but I do not think he can go into the question which he has just raised.

Mr. LAWSON: I shall let that matter rest for the present.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I do not know if I would be in order in raising the question of reservists' pay.

Mr. SPEAKER: That certainly would not come under this Vote.

7.25 p.m.

Colonel GOODMAN: My reason for intervening is to draw the attention of the House to a paragraph in the Memorandum of the Secretary of State on page 6. It is the third paragraph under the heading "Territorial Army,"

Mr. SPEAKER: I am afraid that does not come under the Vote either.

Question put, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

The House divided: Ayes, 242; Noes, 39.

Division No. 173.]
AYES.
[7.29 p.m.


Albery, Irving James
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Cross. R. H.
Hanbury, Cecil


Aske, Sir Robert William
Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry


Astor, Maj. Hn. John J. (Kent, Dover)
Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Harbord, Arthur


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Davidson. Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Harris, Sir Percy


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Hartland, George A.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)


Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Dick[...]e, John P.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Doran, Edward
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.


Bateman, A. L.
Duckworth, George A. V.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Duggan, Hubert John
Heneage, Lieut. Colonel Arthur P.


Belt, Sir Alfred L.
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Hepworth, Joseph


Bernays, Robert
Dunglass, Lord
Holdsworth, Herbert


Betterton, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry B.
Eastwood, John Francis
Hornby, Frank


Borodale, Viscount
Edmondson, Major A. J.
Horsbrugh, Florence


Boulton, W. W.
Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Howard, Tom Forrest


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Elmley, Viscount
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Hume, Sir George Hopwood


Bracken, Brendan
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Evans, Capt. Ernest (Welsh Univ.)
Janner, Barnett


Broadbent, Colonel John
Everard, W. Lindsay
Jesson, Major Thomas E.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)


Burnett, John George
Fraser, Captain Ian
Kerr, Hamilton W.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Lambert, Rt. Hon. George


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul


Chorlton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Glossop, C. W. H.
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)


Christie, James Archibald
Goff, Sir Park
Leckle, J. A.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Gower, Sir Robert
Levy, Thomas


Cook, Thomas A.
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
Liddall, Walter S.


Cooper, A. Duff
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Lindsay, Noel Ker


Copeland, Ida
Greaves-Lord, Sir Walter
Little, Graham, Sir Ernest


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)
Llewellin, Major John J.


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Lloyd, Geoffrey


Cranborne, Viscount
Grimston, R. V.
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd.G'n)


Crooke, J. Smedley
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Lyons, Abraham Montagu


Mabane, William
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Storey, Samuel


MacAndrew, Lieut. Col. C. G. (Partick)
Ramsbotham, Herwald
Stourton, Hon. John J.


MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Rankin, Robert
Strauss, Edward A.


Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Rathbone, Eleanor
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton
Rawson, Sir Cooper
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.


McLean, Major Sir Alan
Rea, Walter Russell
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
Summersby, Charles H.


Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)
Sutcliffe, Harold


Macquisten, Frederick Alexander
Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Maitland, Adam
Remer, John R.
Thompson, Sir Luke


Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Rickards, George William
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Ropner, Colonel L.
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Marsden, Commander Arthur
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)
Tree, Ronald


Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Runge, Norah Cecil
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Milne, Charles
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Molson, A. Hugh Elsdale
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Moreing, Adrian C.
Salt, Edward W.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H, (Denbigh)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour.


Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip A. G. D.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Munro, Patrick
Scone, Lord
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Nail, Sir Joseph
Selley, Harry R.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Nail-Cain, Hon. Ronald
Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel George


Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Nunn, William
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Wise, Alfred R.


Pearson, William G.
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin
Withers, Sir John James


Peat, Charles U.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n Kinc'dine, C.)
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Penny, Sir George
Smithers, Waldron
Womersley, Walter James


Percy, Lord Eustace
Somervell, Sir Donald
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Perkins, Walter R. D.
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)
Spens, William Patrick



Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Pybus, Sir Percy John
Stanley Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert


Ra[...]kes, Henry V. A. M.
Steel-Maltland, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur
Ward and Lord Erskine.


Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)



NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Mainwaring, William Henry


Banfield, John William
Hicks, Ernest George
Maxton, James


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Jenkins. Sir William
Milner, Major James


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Paling, Wilfred


Buchanan, George
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Parkinson, John Allen


Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Kirkwood, David
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Daggar, George
Lawson, John James
Thorne, William James


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Leonard, William
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Edwards, Charles
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)



Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
McEntee, Valentine L.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
McGovern, John
Mr. John and Mr. Groves.


Question put, and agreed to.

Ordered, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide, during twelve months, for the Discipline and Regulation of the Army and the Air Force; and that Mr. Duff Cooper and Sir Bolton Eyres Monsell and Sir Philip Sassoon do prepare and bring it in.

ARMY AND AIR FORCE (ANNUAL) BILL,

"to provide during twelve months for the Discipline and Regulation of the Army and the Air Force," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 82.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

7.39 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I think I may be in order if I raise now the point about marriage allowances which I raised on the Committee stage. I want to ask the Under-Secretary of State for War if there can be no reconsideration of the marriage allowances to soldiers who at the present time for one reason or another are refused. It is extremely unfortunate that a man in the Service with a wife at home and sometimes a child should be in this position. I know that they get married outside the rules that govern allowances, but one must take into account certain human considerations that ought to arise, and I think it is bad for the prestige of the Army, because the
wife and child have to be maintained and usually at the expense of some public fund or other.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): As the hon. Member is aware, we grant marriage allowances to soldiers who marry at the age of 26, but we do not consider it advisable, from the point of view of the Army, apart from the expense, to encourage men to marry sooner. I think this applies to some extent to civil life; 26 is perhaps a very suitable age at which to begin to entertain thoughts of that nature and it would be undesirable to lower the age. Of course, cases occur, as the hon. Member has suggested, in which hardship is suffered owing to this regulation, but I seriously think, if we adopted his suggestion and gave allowances to all men who are married, it would be an encouragement to very young men to marry thoughtlessly. Men who join the Services do not want to take a lot of responsibility on their shoulders, and they should not be encouraged to undertake this obligation without due thought. Therefore, I cannot undertake that the Army Council will give it reconsideration, for it has been considered very carefully and decided against, both on the ground of the expense involved and the considerations I have mentioned.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

7.42 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: In the Debate last Thursday, I drew the attention of the Financial Secretary to certain items on page 195 dealing with works, buildings and lands. I drew the hon. and gallant Member's attention to the fact that for some years we have had an estimate of something like £1,500,000 for the great new camp at Catterick. Now there have been considerable criticisms of that camp as the years have gone on, but anyone who knows the camp with its exposed position in the north, a long way from the ordinary centres, will not dispute that money must be spent to provide accommodation for the men, including proper recreational facilities. This year, instead
of having a lump sum, there seems to be an expenditure broken up into several parts, I think in 10 different sections. Altogether it means something like an expenditure of £62,000 next year, and we are told, under 10 different headings, that we have to have an expenditure of £139,000 in future years. Maybe this is necessary, but I think we ought to have some explanation. There seems to be almost interminable making of roads in that great camp. There has been so many made that one might think they keep on making them afresh.
There seems also to be repeated notice of renewal of certain hutments. I should not like unnecessarily to criticise the arrangements for troops in such an area as this. Everyone knows what it was during the War, when because of its exposed position, it had, to say the least of it, not a good reputation. It has been very well laid out and the troops have been well catered for. The amenities are a credit to those who have been responsible for the playing fields and dry canteens and arrangements of that kind. It does seem, however, that the expenditure upon this particular camp is almost interminable in large sums of which there does not seem any possible end in the near future. We ought to be given some reason for the expenditure, particularly as we are now promised an expenditure of £139,000 in future years.
On page 192 of the Estimates an increase of something like £663,000 is shown this year for works and buildings generally. Most of that is to meet the needs for accommodating units, and we are certainly the last people to criticise that provision. The House, however, will be interested to learn that one of the big items of expenditure nowadays is for the shelter and upkeep of tanks and tractors. As a matter of fact, it looks as though the mechanised Army will take more looking after than the horses did. There are several great blocks of expenditure for this purpose. There may be an explanation for it, but the fond hope that there was to be increased power in the mechanised Army for a similar expenditure, or even less, is not likely to develop in future years, for it looks as if the housing of the tanks and tractors will be as expensive as the housing of horses and troops, and that the charges for maintenance will be on an almost similar scale.

7.49 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I should like to ask the Financial Secretary how the provision of married quarters for those who are married on the strength is getting on. When the Labour party was in office, I asked how many men who had been married on the strength had not got quarters, and the Government were unable to say. Eventually they ascertained that there were something over 1,000. I understand a considerable building scheme has been put forward, and I shall be glad if the Financial Secretary can tell us how it is getting on. A good many of the married quarters were old-fashioned and had the most objectionable system of common latrines, and the War Office, I understand, were determined to get rid of them. Can the Financial Secretary say how that improvement is getting on? On page 189 of the Estimate there are some useful paragraphs showing that the War Office are changing the old barrack room accommodation and that they are dividing off the dining rooms from other quarters. I congratulate the War Office on that provision and also on certain provisions showing that they are bringing up to date the old hutted quarters. There is an idea that in certain of the hutted quarters disease like meningitis is more prevalent. Has the War Office found out whether at a station like Borden it is owing to their having only wooden barracks that there is a greater prevalence of meningitis than at any other station? If so, will they do all in their power to get the wooden barracks replaced by permanent brick ones?

7.52 p.m.

Mr. COOPER: The hon. and gallant Member has fired off a number of queries without previous notice, and I am afraid I cannot answer them in detail immediately. We are endeavouring to do what we can to make improvements in the various directions he has suggested and to deal with various matters to which he has referred. How they stand at the present time I cannot say without notice, nor can I give him the information that he asks on the question of health. The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) asked about Catterick. I am sorry I omitted in replying to the Debate last week to
deal with this point. The main cause of the continued expenditure at Catterick is that when it was first set up it was done in a hurry as a temporary war camp, and, when you do things in a hurry, unfortunately they cannot be done on a sound economical basis. The quarters were scattered in various parts of the land that was available, and that is why it has been necessary to spend money year after year on the camp. The ideal would have been to take a large sum one year and to do the whole thing properly from the beginning, but that has not been possible. We go on improving the camp and, as the hon. Member is well aware, there is still room for improvement. We are doing our best all the time to make it a more suitable place from the point of view of the troops who are compelled to live there.
When the hon. Member deals with the large increase on the Vote this year for works, he has forgotten the point that I made in the Debate last week when I explained that the increase is principally due—I might say almost entirely due—to the increased work at Singapore. I explained then that we are spending £450,000 on one item at that station alone. Otherwise, I do not think there is any general increase. Some Votes are up and some are down, and the new sheds for the protection of tanks, etc., are not a very large item. I do not think it costs more to house these mechanised vehicles than to house men or horses, and the greater part of the money we are taking this year is going rather to provide housing for men and improving the huts and so on than for building shelters for tanks. When you have a big new invention like tanks, it means that you have to erect suitable buildings for them as the stables that were available are not suitable.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Mr. LAWSON: May I ask you, Sir, on which Vote I can raise the question of promotion? I have looked at each of
these Votes, and I cannot find one that is suitable.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should raise it on the Minister's salary.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS.

REPORT [15th March.]

Resolutions reported,

1. "That towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1933, the sum of £7,366 15s. 7d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom

2. That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1934, the sum of £2,313,167 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom

3. That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, the sum of £206,609,700 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."

Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Hore-Belisha, and Captain Margesson.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL,

"to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-three, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, and one thousand nine hundred and thirty-five," presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 83.]

IMPORT DUTIES ACT, 1932.

8 p.m.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): I beg to move:
That the Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 2) Order, 1934, dated the twentieth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, and the Finance Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented
to this House on the said twentieth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved.
I think it will be convenient if at the same time we consider Order No. 6. which is also down on the Paper:
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 6) Order, 1934, dated the seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved.
These two Orders do three things: They add certain classes of goods to the Free List, they take certain classes of goods from the Free List and they impose additional duties on the goods which are removed from the Free List. Strictly speaking, the addition of goods to the Free List does not require a Resolution from this House, but as the Order is before the House on account of its other provisions no doubt the House would like to hear an explanation of the Free List provisions also. The goods that are added to the Free List are certain paintings. The Import Duties Advisory Committee desire to exempt works of art from duty as far as is practicable, partly because they are media of culture but also because we have a very valuable re-export trade in works of art. British students and artists travel very widely and send back from abroad their own works and bring back material for pictures in the form of sketches. It is obviously desirable that our own people, painting pictures abroad and sending back sketches, should not have their works subject to duty. It was impossible to find a workable definition: of the expression "work of art." It will be within the recollection of the House that that question has often given rise to debate when eminent sculptors have taken a hand in affairs. As it was not possible to find a satisfactory description of "work of art," the Import Duties Advisory Committee have drawn up a very full description of what they mean. The other class of goods added to the Free List consists of printed parts of newspapers, periodicals and printed books, and of letterpress matter with certain exceptions. It seems quite clear that we could not extend the exemptions to labels, bags, wrapping materials and catalogues imported in bulk. We are also taking certain goods off the Free List in
order to put a duty upon them. Nearly all catalogues, trade lists and advertising material are already subject to duty at 20 per cent., but we want to allow a certain type of catalogue to come in, and so the Order does not apply to such goods not exceeding eight ounces in weight. What we are trying to do is to prevent any British firm sending orders for catalogues abroad and importing them by the thousand; but we have no objection to an individual catalogue or to any bulk of printed catalogues when imported in a packet not exceeding eight ounces in weight coming in free.
The last type of goods taken out of the Free List and put into a dutiable class is out-of-date magazines. The House may be surprised, as were some Members of His Majesty's Government, to find that there is a big trade in imported out-of-date periodicals, particularly from the other side of the Atlantic. Apparently our own magazine and periodical trade is very seriously interfered with by publications from the other side of the Atlantic being sent here when they are out-of-date and being sold at ruinous prices.

Mr. ATTLEE: Is that for reading or pulping?

Dr. BURGIN: They are shipped here in order to get a price which is more profitable to the exporter than pulping them in the country of origin. In order to save themselves the cost of pulping they are prepared to jettison these books at extremely low prices. These magazines include many humdrum periodicals, and some literature the title of which is such that I simply dare not read it out. "Hollywood Nights" is one of them. This traffic is damaging to legitimate trade here, and the definition has been very carefully drafted. The class of goods being subjected to duty are periodicals imported more than 15 days after the end of the month when they appear. I would only make this clear. The House may wonder why one goes through the double-barrelled process of removing something from the Free List and then putting a duty on it. It is purely a question of drafting. Section 7 of the Finance Act of 1932 says that the Treasury may, on the direction of the Import Duties Advisory Committee, direct goods of any class to cease to be in the First Schedule to the Import Duties Act. The effect
of that is to make the goods subject to the ordinary 10 per cent. duty. Section 3 of the Import Duties Act permits the committee to recommend, and the Treasury to order, additional duties, but that applies only to goods which are subject to a duty already. In other words, you can only have an additional duty if there is a duty already, and so in order to put something which is on the Free List into a dutiable class you have first to take it off the Free List, which puts it automatically into the 10 per cent. class, and then you have to apply to it the duty which is recommended. The duty is specified in these Orders No. 2 and No. 6. I do not think there is anything in connection with those two duties on which the House is likely to require further information, or any matter to which the House is likely to take exception.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. DAVID GRENFELL: The House is very much indebted to the hon. Gentleman for his very clear explanation of these two Orders, and we are grateful to him for suggesting that they should be taken together, because if considered separately neither of them means anything at all. The White Paper which has been published to supply an explanation of these Orders is certainly lacking in the clarity which the hon. Gentleman's speech displayed. I wish that he wrote the White Papers himself, because those who compile them do not write with as much conviction as the hon. Gentleman shows. Paragraph 4 of the White Paper dealing with Order No. 2 speaks of:
Paintings in oil or water colours, pencil and charcoal drawings, and pastels, on canvas or paper (including board).
Further down those are described as works of art. The hon. Gentleman referred to the difficulty of defining works of art, and we are still very much in the dark concerning the exact definition of the goods which will come under this description. The committee say:
The committee decided to deal with the matter by recommending the exemption from duty of (1) certain clearly definable works of art.
There are works of art and works of art. There are paintings on canvas and on board, and paintings on other material, which are far from being works of art, and it is this exact distinction between a painting on canvas or board which is a work of art and a painting on canvas or
board which is not a work of art which should be made clear. I would like the hon. Gentleman to tell us whether a Low cartoon of Members of the National Government would be classified as a work of art, and whether if Mr. Low, in the fulfilment of his contract with the well-known evening newspaper which employs him, drew a cartoon in France portraying the National Government in any of its most presentable features, that would be regarded as a work of art for the purposes of this Order?

Dr. BURGIN: I do not know whether the hon. Member would like an answer now, because he is developing an interesting theme? The answer is that if it were a cartoon in black and white it would not be, but that if it were adequately coloured it would be.

Mr. GRENFELL: I feel sure that is a piece of information which will be of great relief to the Government themselves. If they could exclude Mr. Low's cartoons on any pretext at all I am sure they would be glad to do so. But we are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving us the information that a coloured cartoon is a work of art and an uncoloured cartoon is not a work of art. We on this side of the House believe that the uncoloured cartoon is a work of very great art and very effective art, but the hon. Member says that if it is not coloured it is not a work of art, and therefore it is not subject to this exemption. He told us further that the free entry of works of art into this country is of very great advantage to the re-export trade. I wish he would give us some idea of the value of that trade in works of art which are re-exported. We can quite understand paintings which are valuable through their age and excellent craftsmanship, but we do not know what value is to be attached to paintings of all kinds which come from all parts of the world to the market in this country. In asking for that information we would at the same time enter a protest against the manner in which this subject is presented to us.
I challenge any hon. Member who has read the White Paper to say that he is any the better informed after having done so. The wording of these White Papers must have been thought out, but although one reads them from beginning to end one gets no information, except that certain articles are to come in free
of duty and upon others an additional duty is to be charged. It does not help the Committee very much, but we protest once more. We do not wish to divide the House on these two Orders, but we enter our protest against this procedure. We find in paragraph 3 of the Order the statement is made:
We have received a considerable number of representations that additions to the First Schedule should be made in respect of printed matter which cannot be held to be either newspapers, periodicals or printed books,
and so on. Who made those representations? Why is the House not told? From what source were the representations made? What kind of people made them, and were those representations made purely in the interests of the producers of this kind of commodity or in the interests of a small number of people who may profit considerably from the changes made in the existing import duty? Why cannot these things be made with some estimate of the financial result which will accrue from the operation of duties of this kind?
We may be talking about something which is very small, and which may only affect duties amounting in the aggregate to a few thousands of pounds. As far as the Orders are concerned, the additional duties may be a very considerable sum or they may amount to an insignificantly small sum. We ought to be given some estimate on this matter. It is because of the lack of information in the recommendations of the Import Duties Advisory Committee that we put these questions to the Minister. We are content for the moment to make our protest at the way in which these changes are made, and because of the inadequate information.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. JANNER: I would like to ask one or two questions of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade before we decide what our attitude is to be. The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) has made the point that the explanation given in the introduction of these duties is even more difficult to follow than the terms of the Order itself. We, too—at least I should say I—feel a certain amount of difficulty in realising what is the exact nature of the relief which is to be expected, particularly in regard to objects of art. I should like
to know, for example, whether we are to have included in this "clearly definable" definition such objects of art as sculpture. If not, why are these being excluded? There must be a large number of important objects of art which have to be included in an Order of this description. It clearly indicates the difficulties which must needs arise in regard to tariff impositions and the removal of them.
We pointed out, when the tariff measures were introduced, that difficulties of this nature and possibly of a very serious kind, would arise from time to time. Although this may be a small matter, it is one which shows quite clearly how such difficulties arise. Why is one object of art covered by a duty and another object of art is not covered? Who is to define what is and what is not within the Order? We ought to have a little clearer indication of how the matter stands, before we vote upon it.

8.19 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: I can only address the House again with the permission of the House, in order to answer a few questions which have been put to me. In regard to general policy, hon. Members cannot complain that the House is overcharged with detail and then, when any part is delegated to another body to deal with the detail, complain that the detail is not discussed in their hearing. The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) asked what value was to be put upon this trade; what was it worth in pounds, shillings and pence? Bond Street has a world-wide reputation for the export of works of art. Some of us do not know what value to put on our pictures, because that is essentially a matter of opinion depending upon a very large number of factors. I therefore do not think that it is possible to put a particular figure upon the value of our re-export trade in works of art. It is a substantial British trade for which London has a deserved reputation, and which it is not desirable, or indeed possible, separately to assess in monetary value.
With regard to the nature of the works of art, I want to treat this matter quite seriously, and not to be led away by a Low cartoon, coloured or uncoloured. I want to give the House a true picture of what is being done. When the Import
Duties Act, 1932, was being passed some question was raised as to works of art 100 years old, and it was stated that it was impossible to treat as manufactured articles a Titian or a Rubens, or some big picture passing to and fro. Therefore, by Section 20, works produced more than 100 years before the date of importation were free from duty. That was a recommendation given by the society dealing with antiquities. There was a recognised description. In July, 1933, there was a further extension to exhibits or specimens sent to approved galleries or to approved museums under the control of a public authority or a university. It was felt to be ridiculous that we should stop an exhibition or a museum piece sent to our country. Whatever their age, and although they may have been produced expressly for the exhibition, they were put on the Free List.
When the Import Duties Advisory Committee came, with the assistance of artists and experts, to consider museum pieces, they came to the conclusion that paintings in oil or water colours, pencil and charcoal drawings, pastels or canvas or paper or board should also be relieved of duty. There was nothing in the protectionist policy of this country which made it desirable to have a duty upon any of those things. As a result of further inquiry, and of representations from those who alone know the details of this trade, the committee have extended their recommendation to paintings in oil or water colours on canvas or paper when framed—not merely a painting, but the presentation, so to speak, in a frame—and to paintings, framed or not, in oil or water colours on materials that are not canvas or paper. So the House will get the whole idea of this matter. First, there were the old paintings, then the museum pieces, then the normal ones, and then the paintings when framed, and they were all included in the Free List.
The exemption does not extend to articles which happen to have a painting on them. For instance, a painted tea-service or textiles on which there is some design are not to wriggle through the Customs on the footing that they are paintings first and tea-services or textiles afterwards. The hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Janner) asked questions about the definition. The definition is included in order that it shall relate to anything that is specific It is the
Commissioners of Customs and Excise who interpret its meaning. There is a very serious observation that a great part of average conversation is perfectly right, but absolutely inaccurate when sifted. The definition is hedged about and is defined in this way with the assistance of the best experts which the trade can produce. If the definition which gets into the Advisory Committee's Report is wrong, that is a censure upon the trade, because the trade has had every possible opportunity to see that the definition is accurately expressed.
The hon. Member for Whitechapel says, "Why not sculpture?" The answer is that it is undefinable. Nobody has yet found a word that would adequately define sculpture. Imported marble, in whatever shape it may be brought, is subject to a duty of 15 per cent. Some people may call it sculpture, while others may call it nature's effort. Whichever it is, it is subject to a duty of 15 per cent., because there has not been any possibility of defining where granite stops and art begins.
The hon. Member for Gower raised another point, quite seriously, about newspapers and periodicals, and I want again to give him the short explanation which will make his mind range on the side of mine. Newspapers, periodicals and printed books were in the free list, but there was the ridiculous position that pamphlets and unbound sheets were liable to duty. If the whole thing was brought in, it was free, but if it was brought in in bits it was subject to duty. The effect of this present Order is to free from duty such printed matter as foreign official publications received under international exchange agreements, instructions for working machinery, information relating to letters of credit, travellers' cheques, express money orders, special invoice forms, telegraphic code cards, and printed forms required for exporting interests. These are all obviously articles that we ought to allow to be imported.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: Why did you not do so before?

Dr. BURGIN: Quite honestly it was a pure mistake, I think. Of course, that does not apply to wrappers and labels and things of that kind. I have endeavoured to give almost an exhaustive explanation of the extent of the application of the Order, because I hope it will
in some measure clear up, not only misapprehensions, but points of legitimate difficulty.

Resolved,
That the Import Duties (Exemptions) (No. 2) Order, 1934, dated the twentieth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, and the Finance Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said twentieth day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 6) Order, 1934, dated the seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said seventh day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved."—[Dr. Burgin.]

Dr. BURGIN: I beg to move,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 4) Order, 1934, dated the first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved.
This Order relates to two substances, di-sodium phosphate and tri-sodium phosphate. Di-sodium phosphate is used in silk weighting, calico printing, textile dyeing, sugar refining, water softening, and detergent compounds; and tri-sodium phosphate is used in laundries, in the manufacture of soap powders and in detergent and degreasing compounds. These sodium phosphates came in from abroad. In 1931 we began to manufacture them, but for the last two years our output for all purposes has been very much below the productive capacity of our United Kingdom manufacturers, and, despite the general ad valorem duty, Continental phosphates have been coming into this country at prices considerably below the British cost of production. Additional plant is available, firms are increasing their manufacture, and the Import Duties Advisory Committee desire to encourage the manufacture in this country of these phosphates to an extent sufficient to supply all the needs of United Kingdom industries; and they are satisfied that that can be done with only a negligible increase of cost to the industries concerned. The imports for the last seven years have averaged something like 46,000 cwts., and the value is
something between £20,000 and £30,000. The industries concerned are very largely textile industries other than cotton. Eighty per cent. of the di-sodium phosphate is used for textiles, mostly for silk and for purposes not connected with cotton. As for tri-sodium phosphate, less than 10 per cent of it is used in the cotton textile industry. Something like half the whole quantity is used for textiles, but almost all unconnected with cotton.
The duties that are recommended are such a rate of duty as, with the ad valorem duty, will amount in the one case to 35s. a ton, and in the other case to 50s. a ton. I have had a good many inquiries made, as to the locality of the factories, the nature of the people who are going to take part in the manufacture, the number of men who are going to be employed, the average cost of these materials used in these particular industries, and the increase in cost that is likely to follow as a result of these articles being manufactured in the United Kingdom; and I am satisfied that this is a case in which we were importing Continental phosphates which we could quite well make here. I believe that on balance, when the facts are rightly explained, the consuming interest would prefer that these articles should be manufactured here and that the consequent additional employment to be given in this country.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. D. GRENFELL: Here again we do not propose to detain the House for very long, but there are one or two matters that we should like to have cleared up in regard to the uses to which these materials are put. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied, and can he satisfy the House, that the cost of production will not be unduly raised by increasing the cost of raw materials to the industries using these two chemical substances, di-sodium phosphate and tri-sodium phosphate, which will now have to carry a very heavy percentage of duty?
The hon. Gentleman has not revealed the percentage, but I have worked it out from the figures that he gave us. We have imported these commodities at a price round about £10 per ton, and the recommendation now is that the duties in question, when added to the general ad
valorem duty, shall be, in the case of di-sodium phosphate, £1 15s. per ton, and in the case of tri-sodium phosphate £2 10s. per ton. I do not know whether the prices of these two substances are approximately the same, but, if we assume that there is no great difference between their prices, we find that the scale of duty now recommended may reach an aggregate of 17½ per cent. of the value in the one case, and 25 per cent. of the value in the other. The point arises that, if the value of the commodity increases, we shall find that the additional duty over and above the present ad valorem duty works out at a lower percentage on the higher value, and that is all to the good; but the hon Gentleman would really help us on this side, and the House as a whole, if he could give us some indication of how far these costs are going to affect the industries of silk weighting, calico printing, and textile dyeing and finishing, which are now in a rather serious condition. The plight of the cotton industry gives serious concern to everyone in the country, and we now find that an article which is in use for calico printing, and which may be used very extensively, is to be raised in price, thereby adding to the cost of production of calico prints and textiles.
The other commodity, the tri-sodium phosphate, is used for the manufacture of soap powders, and I do not know whether the industry will be very much influenced by a small rise in the price, but every little additional item of cost to the textile industry is a very serious thing. I should like to know what is the approximate estimate of the cost of this additional duty. It is not a large sum, but, if confined to a limited variety of products, it may mean a very considerable increase indeed. The small addition revealed by the figure of £23,000 in the annual value of the imports, or an additional 10 or 20 per cent., is a very small sum taken over the whole of the trade in which these commodities are used, but, if they are used in a substantial proportion in any one industry, the cost may be considerable, and I should like the hon. Gentleman to inform the House on the point.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: The hon. Gentleman in moving the confirmation of the Order said he thought that, if the
users of these various kinds of products had the matter explained to them and were in possession of all the facts, they would prefer to draw their sources of supply from the manufactures which would presumably be developed if the Order is passed. I should like to know whether these users have already had an opportunity of stating their views. We attach the greatest possible importance to that. We have seen that, where inadequate notice has been given, very serious trouble has arisen, and I should be glad to know whether the usual notice was given in this case and whether those who are interested in the matter have had an opportunity of stating their views.

8.38 p.m.

Mr. PALING: It appears to me, although the third paragraph reads that these goods have been delivered here at prices lower than the British cost of production, the estimate does not prove that there has been undue competition. It says the capacity for production is greater than the output has been for the last two years, and in the next paragraph it says there has been such increased demand for it that the people who produce it are already putting down new plant in order to cope with the increased demand. From that it would not seem that the manufacturers have been suffering unduly from the competition of this low-priced stuff. If they are not complaining about the competition, and if that is not the reason for putting the duty on, what is the reason? The use of these things is growing tremendously. Have all these people, not only those who use it as a raw material but those who sell it in the shops as a finished article for the householder, been studied? Have they had an opportunity of putting their point of view before the committee before the decision was arrived at? Then, could the Minister give us some idea of the difference in price between the British made and the imported article? I think he said that 46,000 cwts. and £20,000 or £30,000 in value represents the importation from foreign countries. Will he also tell us the weight and the corresponding value of the British production?

8.40 p.m.

Dr. BURGIN: When an industry comes to the Import Duties Advisory Com-
mittee and asks that it may be given an opportunity of supplying the British markets, the first essential is to show that it has the power to do it, so that no doubt these manufacturers who have been putting down increased plant were preparing their case. They were putting it within their power to make an application with any chance of success. The Import Duties Advisory Committee will not allow an increased duty against an article coming from abroad unless they are abundantly satisfied that the local market and the local consumers can be satisfied. Consequently, they expressly report that the plant is now being enlarged to enable the manufacturers to cope with a much increased demand and that they are satisfied as a tribunal, after hearing the evidence that they can supply all the needs of the United Kingdom industry. So that, quite apart from competition being negatived by the building of the plant, I say two things, first of all this is a product made in large quantities abroad and sold here below the bare cost of production and, secondly, that the manufacturers in England have satisfied the tribunal that they can supply the whole of the British quantities. Presumably the British quantities are not less than the total imported quantities plus what the British people were making before. I shall be prepared to deal with the figures on that basis.
What can I say about the users? The Import Duties Advisory Committee advertised their intention to deal with this matter and if people objected to the increased duties they were heard. There was certainly an opportunity for presenting the views of both sides and, as far as I know, that was taken advantage of by those who desired to make any comment. The hon. Member for Went-worth (Mr. Paling) asked what is the approximate difference in price. That, of course, is very difficult to say. Manufacturers have not yet had an opportunity of making it on a sufficient scale to tell us what the price will be, but I should have thought that the price, taken broad and large, might possibly go up by not more than 8 per cent. That is the calculation. I should like to give the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. D. Grenfell) a broad reply. Here we are dealing with chemicals. The scale of duty for chemicals is 33⅓ per cent. under the Key
Industries Duties when it is a fine chemical of pure quality and 20 per cent. when it is not. If you look through all the Import Duty Orders, you will find that the broad general level for chemicals is 20 per cent. These have only been subject until this Order to 10 per cent., and the object of the duty is to put these two substances up to the general level of 20 per cent. We are dealing with depreciated and changing currencies and the possibility of lowering prices abroad. We are dealing in times when an ordinary percentage increase is not very satisfactory so, as far as possible, one is trying to deal with it on the footing of what it will be when it is realised here. What the Order really does is to include two chemicals which have hitherto been paying 10 per cent. in the general level of chemicals, namely, 20 per cent.

8.44 p.m.

Mr. PALING: Does the hon. Gentleman mean that the additional 8 per cent. that he suggested is the increase on the foreign article as sold now?

Dr. BURGIN: Yes. In other words, the consumer who has been accustomed to paying £1,000 for the quantity that he buys from abroad might have to pay £80 in addition.

Mr. WHITE: May I ask my hon. Friend whether the respective users who raised opposition to the proposals subsequently agreed? The hon. Member said he believed the users would prefer, if the matter were explained to them, to have the right permitted by this Order, and I am puzzled to know what the position is.

Dr. BURGIN: I do not want the House to be puzzled. I am trying to make two definite statements, one of fact and one of opinion. When the Import Duties Advisory Committee say, "We have under contemplation the raising of the duty on such a substance," it is technically open to anybody who does not like the rule to oppose it. They take into account the comments of the consumer who may say, "We consume so much of this stuff and do not want the price unduly raised against us," as it were. In actual fact that is the position. I use that argument in order to reply to the hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr.
White). He asks, were they consulted? Certainly, and the Import Duties Advisory Committee had an opportunity of hearing their comments. I have no knowledge whatever whether that opposition was withdrawn, or how it was dealt with, or what impression they made on the Import Duties Advisory Committee, but I say, as a matter of broad opinion, that I believe the consumers in this country are prepared to accept the doctrine that cheapness, with men out of work, is not as desirable as a slightly dearer price, with more men employed. I believe that to be a doctrine which has found increasing favour throughout the country, and that, if these facts were clearly, and adequately explained, the consumers would be prepared to enable those goods to be manufactured in this country.

Resolved,
That the Additional Import Duties (No. 4) Order, 1934, dated the first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, be approved.

BRITISH SUGAR (SUBSIDY) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

8.48 p.m.

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
I think that it is as true as it was in 1931, when Parliament asked for increased assistance to the home industry, that in no country in the world can the beet sugar industry be maintained on a profitable basis unless supported by substantial artificial aid. In other countries assistance is being accorded through the incidence of sugar duties, import restrictions, fixed internal prices and so on. In most continental countries, it is interesting to note, the effective assistance exceeds that which is at present provided in this country. The introduction of this Bill was foreshadowed in the Speech from the Throne on the occasion of the opening of the present Session. The purpose of the Bill is to authorise the payment of a subsidy to the British beet sugar industry, in continuation of, and—subject
to a modification as regards molasses—on the same scale as that which is at present payable under the Act of 1925. That Act authorised the payment of a subsidy on sugar and molasses manufactured in Great Britain from home grown beet during a period of 10 years, which expires on 30th September next, and it is proposed under this Bill to extend the period to 31st August, 1935. There is an Amendment down for the rejection of the Bill in the names both of the Opposition above the Gangway and the Opposition below the Gangway.

Mr. PARKINSON: Double-barrelled.

Mr. ELLIOT: Double-barrelled, but only one charge. The objection of my hon. Friends opposite is all the more remarkable, since it was in pursuance of an undertaking given by them when in office that the beet sugar subsidy was introduced. My hon. and right hon. Friends below the Gangway can claim a longer record of consistency in their opposition to the Act, the opposition to the British beet sugar subsidy being in fact, as far as one can see, the only raison d'etre for the continued existence of their party. They are, however, placed in a new difficulty by their criticisms in their recent brochure entitled "The Liberal Address to the Nation." In that entertaining document they come down quite definitely on the abolition both of the sugar subsidy and of the Wheat Act arrangement. It is the more extraordinary since both my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) voted for that arrangement on the Second Reading of the Bill, and again on the Third Reading of the Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland wound up the first day's Debate for the Government on that Bill in a speech of great eloquence which was admired by us all. That was in 1932. But in March, 1934, in an admirable foreword, the document to which I refer states:
In these anxious times, testing man's capacity with many new and formidable problems, what is the policy, what are the proposals of British Liberalism?
The document gives the answer, and, on page 10, we find:
The State should cease to burden the nation with heavy charges for maintaining wheat and sugar production for which other countries are better suited.
That is a change from the eloquent address of my right hon. Friend commending the Second Reading of the Bill to the House of Commons, and his commentary on the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Pembroke (Major Lloyd George) whom he took seriously to task not on the agricultural issue of the Wheat Quota Bill which he was commending to the House, but on the general issue of whether assistance should be given by the taxpayers to the agricultural industry of this country. The right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland said that the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke was shocked at the taxpayers being called upon to come in and help the industry. The Wheat Bill, he pointed out, placed no burden upon the taxpayer, but the hon. and gallant Member for Pembroke seemed to be shocked at the very idea of bringing in the taxpayers to help to reconstruct industry.
I do not think, said my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland, that you will get a practical reconstruction of industry until you get some help of this kind from the taxpayers. Now he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen are in opposition and are supporting the suggestion that this should no longer be given. The fact of the matter is that the 10-year period which was then suggested is due to come to an end, and the question is whether we are now in a position to form a final verdict upon the merits of the experiment or the desirability of continuing it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen says that we are now in that position, and that the experiment should now be discontinued. He will make a speech which we all expect from him—an eloquent, carefully-phrased speech showing the size of the industry, the contribution it has made towards employment, the heavy burdens which have been placed upon the State, and he will come to the conclusion that the industry should be discontinued. Then, I ask myself, what industry would he wish to have continued? Whenever there is a proposition that anything practical should be done for any industry, he says that that particular industry should not have any State assistance given to it, and should
be allowed to disappear if it cannot exist in present economic conditions. What are the present economic conditions to which he wishes to expose our industries? They are conditions under which he will admit there is no world economic price for any of the articles concerned. The price of any of these articles in the so-called world market is the sum total of conflicting national policies, with no relation to the cost of the production of the article. As I have said before, and I say again, if British agriculture is exposed in every case to the competition of selected men, producing a selected product, at a selected time and pushing that product on to the market with a selected amount of subsidy, it is going to be most difficult for British agriculture to compete.
If the right hon Gentleman is to argue against such State assistance as we propose he will have to defend the position which he has taken up in regard to other agricultural products of this country in the Liberal Address to the Nation, He says that the State should help by all the means in its power the effective organisation of animal husbandry, dairying, poultry farming, pig farming, fruit cultivation and market gardening. But organisation alone will not save any one of those industries unless there is adequate insulation from the shock of the world market in some form or other.
Does anyone suggest that animal husbandry, dairying, poultry farming, pig farming, fruit cultivation or market gardening will continue to flourish in this country under present economic conditions? They will not, and unless something is done we shall have the spectacle of the disappearance of not merely one but all our agricultural industries. How much better off would the right hon. Gentleman be under the gospel of buying in the cheapest market if as a nation we are to form up in queues outside the Employment Exchanges drawing unemployment assistance and then buying with the assistance we get from the taxpayer the extremely cheap goods that will be sent to us from abroad. Is it not better that we should have a strong nation which is able to stand upon its feet and look its competitors in the face, a nation which is in the condition to stand the shocks of modern existence?
Admittedly uneconomic as these experiments are, the burdens on the State as a
whole are not so burdensome as the prospect which is offered to us of resigning ourselves completely to the destruction of any of our industries which happen to be attacked from abroad by the wash of the world market or the deliberate assault of some powerful competitor. We have to plan our insulation at home against attack from abroad. The proposals which we put before the House are of a temporary nature, that is with the object of seeing how in this as in other industries it will be possible finally to extend a reasonable amount of protection at home. I say that without any hesitation.
A considerable amount of employment has been given by the expansion of the sugar-beet industry. The acreage under sugar-beet has risen from 22,000 to 366,000. The number of farmers growing sugar-beet 10 years ago was 4,000 and last year it was nearly 40,000, more that three-quarters of whom grew less than 10 acres each.
The tonnage of beet crops has increased from 184,000 to 3,306,000 and the average yield of beet per acre over the 10 year period has been eight and a-quarter tons. That average was pulled down by poor growing seasons in 1927, 1928 and 1931 but in 1933 the yield was as high as 9 tons per acre, comparing favourably with the average yields, in Germany of 9.9, and in the United States of America of 9.6 tons, and equalling the average yield of France, which was 9.1 tons. It was however below the high yields of 13 tons in the Netherlands and 11 tons in Belgium. The average quantity of raw sugar per acre produced in Britain during the years 1927–1929 was 2,660 lbs. and the average for the years 1930–33 was 2,965 lbs. In all these figures there is a picture of advance in the British sugar beet industry. I do not wish to put it unduly high but there is an advance when we can point to yields per acre comparable with those of great Continental countries, a rise in the production of sugar and increased efficiency of those who are working upon this crop. The industry supplies one quarter of the country's total requirements of sugar. I do not think it is an unreasonable inroad upon the world market as things are to-day when this country is still willing to purchase overseas three out of every four pounds of sugar. It is making a contribution towards the world market
which very few of our great competitors are making. Certainly the United States of America, which is held up to our admiration by hon. and right hon. Members on the other side, is making no such contribution in its purchases towards a reduction of the great surpluses which admittedly weigh upon the world just now.
The value of State assistance to the industry is still considerable. From 1931 onwards the rate of State assistance has been 12s. per cwt. although at the commencement of the subsidy period the total amount of State assistance, which had the backing of hon. and right hon. Members opposite was no less than 23s. 8d. per cwt. The reduction from 23s. 8d. per cwt. which was the programme of right hon. and hon. Members opposite to 12s. which is our suggestion to-day—

Sir H. SAMUEL: I do not think it is quite fair to the party above the Gangway to make that statement, because the original Act provided for a gradual decrease of the subsidy.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am interested to see my right hon. Friend rushing in to defend the party opposite.

Sir H. SAMUEL: I do not like unfairness wherever it comes from.

Mr. ELLIOT: If I am to be accused of any unfairness in this respect I should have thought that I was more answerable to the party opposite than to the right hon. Gentleman. It may be that they do not know the case so thoroughly as he does.

Sir H. SAMUEL: I am drawing attention to their innocence.

Mr. ELLIOT: I am not quite sure that my right hon. Friend has not taken with his right hand the assistance which he has given to them with his left. I am not sure whether I should prefer to be defended from unfairness by my right hon. Friend or to be chaffed on account of my innocence. I hope that neither of those fates will ever befall me. We are asking for the prolongation of the original Act which expires this year. I will give hon. Members opposite full credit; they did envisage a gradual reduction, but the right hon. Member for Darwen will not deny that on more than one occasion they had to reconsider the question with a favourable attitude
towards the sugar growers, and against some protests by the right hon. Gentleman himself, who thought that if the whole Conservative party went into the same Lobby as the Government of the day, he and his friends could safely lead their legions into the Lobby against it. The desirability of this prolongation has been a matter of controversy between the right hon. Gentleman and myself. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he was about to set up the Committee of Inquiry on this matter, said in his Budget speech:
As to what is to happen when the present Subsidy Act expires in 1934, I am not at present in a position to express an opinion, but with a view to receiving guidance on this and other matters, the Government have further decided to appoint a committee to inquire into the conditions of the United Kingdom sugar industry as a whole, including production, refining and distribution, and to ask this body to report to them before the present Subsidy Act expires."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th April, 1932; col. 1435, Vol. 264.]
The right hon. Member for Darwen has on several occasions complained that he and the House had a grievance in that this Committee will not be able to report before the present subsidy period expires. My right hon. Friend who demands fairness will agree that I am putting this matter quite frankly before the House. It is true that the report will not be in the possession of hon. Members before they are asked to carry out this further prolongation, but I wish to recall to the House the circumstances of the case. For several months after the announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer the Locarno and Ottawa Conferences had first claim on the attention and resources of the Government. There was certainly the possibility of the preference position with regard to sugar being raised at Ottawa, and until the completion of that conference no attempt could be made to formulate a long-term policy. We all remember the conclusion of the Ottawa Conference and the great convulsions into which this country was thrown, the earthquake which passed over our political sphere, and the possibility of the Government for some time having to confine their attention to the most urgent of the problems arising from the unprecedented fact that by the termination of the agreement to differ the right hon. Member and his colleagues withdrew themselves from our councils
and our assistance. The whole position was deeply convulsed, and for a long period the Government was unable to devote the calm and cool attention to these matters which it could have done if the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues had not seen fit to withdraw.
I myself as a new, callow and raw Minister inducted into the important seat of the Ministry of Agriculture, demanded time to study this problem. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not expect me coming so fresh into these great questions to pronounce immediately on the problems before me. When we came to examine the sugar question we found that the whole situation was complicated by differences among interested parties. Producers and refiners appeared to represent opposing interests; in both camps there was a divergence on fundamental issues. The work of the Committee will be difficult and technical enough as it is, but if it is to be called upon to probe into and pronounce upon questions of commercial inter-relationship their work would be involved beyond measure. Nothing would have been more difficult for the Committee than to have had a ferocious warfare between rival sugar interests when it was desirable it should come to some ascertainable facts, and I say quite frankly to the House that I did my utmost to get the interests together. I discussed the matter with them, and tried to get them to come to an agreement on those matters where they were in disagreement and variance before they brought them before the Committee. I was hopeful that the internal differences between the various parties would be rationalised on a voluntary basis rather than by Government direction. These negotiations were, of course, protracted, and it was clear that there would not be time for the deliberations of the Committee of Inquiry before the Act began to run out.
The period of the 1925 Act began to terminate in September last, and it was desirable that some decision should be made before that date. Meanwhile the Government were saving the Committee's time in another direction. One of the main sets of data which the Committee would require were authenticated factory cost data, and steps were taken to get that information. That was the position when I was able to announce to the
House before it rose for the Summer Recess that we had decided on the step which this Bill implements. We said that we based that decision on the understanding that the refining and beet-sugar manufacturing interests would formulate a scheme under the Agricultural Marketing Act and that they would be prepared to co-operate in due course with the growers of sugar-beet in the promotion of a development scheme under which the operations of sugar manufacture refining, and processing might be rationalised in the interests of greater productive efficiency. Since I made that statement the beet-sugar factories and refining interests have fulfilled their undertaking and have submitted a scheme under the Agricultural Marketing Act to regulate the marketing of sugar in Great Britain. The draft scheme is now going through the statutory process required by the Act. The growers of sugar-beet also have reached an advanced stage in the preparation of a scheme to regulate the marketing of their product, and it may be possible, if this scheme is acceptable, to have it in operation in time to control next year's crop. The industry, therefore, has fulfilled the conditions upon which the Government undertook to introduce the present Bill, and the stage is now set for the Committee of Inquiry to commence its work. Its terms of reference are:
To inquire into the condition of the sugar industry in the United Kingdom, including both home-grown beet-sugar and imported sugar-covering production, refining and distribution, and having in mind the changes in the structure of the industry which would follow upon its reorganisation under the Agricultural Marketing Acts and to make recommendations for its future conduct, and in particular as to the application of State aid in so far as this may be considered necessary.
In spite of the comprehensive nature of these terms of reference there is every reason to believe that the committee will present its report in time to enable the Government to determine its long-term policy before the contract period for the 1935 crop begins.
Let me deal with the Clauses of the Bill. Clause 1 proposes to extend the payment of subsidy for 11 months only instead of for a full year, in order to bring the statutory year into line with the actual manufacturing campaign. The Bill proposes to terminate on 31st August
instead of 30th September, 1935. Clause 2 (1) proposes, in effect, that the subsidy upon sugar will be continued at its present rate for one further season. Subsection (2) proposes that there shall be no subsidy upon molasses manufactured between 30th September, 1934, and 1st September, 1935, that is to say, from sugar-beet grown during 1934, unless the average market price of raw sugar is less than 6s. per cwt. If the average market price is less than 6s. then the subsidy will be payable at the rate prescribed in the Schedule to the Bill. Sub-section (3) enjoins that the subsidy on molasses manufactured during September, 1934, shall be calculated at the new and not at the old rate.
Clause 3 proposes that so far as Scotland is concerned the subsidy shall be payable by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries instead of by the Secretary of State for Scotland, in view of the relatively lesser interest which Scotland has in the proposals under discussion. Clause 4 (1), in order to depart as little as possible from the principles of the Act of 1925, empowers the Minister to make such advances as he thinks fit on account of molasses subsidy which is likely to be payable. Sub-section (2) empowers the Minister to recover any overpayment. In the Schedule the average market price of raw sugar is laid down under procedure similar to that employed under the British Sugar Industry (Assistance) Act, 1931, and in paragraphs 3 and 4 arrangements are made by which if the average market price of sugar is 5s. 6d. per cwt. or less the subsidy on molasses shall be continued at the rate now prevailing, but if the average market price is between 5s. 6d. and 6s. per cwt. the rate of subsidy payable will be proportionately decreased, and will completely disappear if the average market price of raw sugar reaches 6s. per cwt. Those are the main provisions of the Bill. The sugar industry has undergone very violent fluctuations and there have been very great falls in the value of the commodity.

Mr. BOOTHBY: Why?

Mr. ELLIOT: The hon. Member asks why. I should say that it was due to world conditions.

Mr. BOOTH BY: Glut.

Mr. ELLIOT: To world conditions, which my hon. Friend knows as well as
I do, and I should say that the word "glut" probably sums it up accurately. I should say that a country which is willing to continue to buy three pounds of sugar for every pound that it proluces at home is making a sensible contribution towards a reduction of that glut. The country which has a sugar industry established here should not let it disappear simply because of the political conditions in the island of Cuba, or the particular position of the Philippines vis-a-vis the United States of America, or the particular state of affairs in Java or the other islands of the South Seas. There are too many incalculable factors in the world to-day to allow our great industries to be at the mercy of any of them.
I should also say that the sugar islands of our own Empire have a very serious interest in this matter, too, and they must have looked with some gloom at the questions asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Darwen, who brought it out that it would be greatly to the financial advantage of this country if in addition to extinguishing the whole of the sugar industry in this island we extinguished the whole of the preference which this country gives to its own sugar-producing islands, and thereby led to the extinction of the sugar industry of the Empire as a whole. It is likely that great financial advantage would come to this country, but the ledgers of Empire are not all kept in calculations of that kind. I do not believe that this country wishes its home industry or its Imperial industry in sugar to be destroyed. If it wishes these things to continue it must be prepared to give some preference both at home and abroad to its own nationals and to members of its own Common-wealth of Nations, as opposed to the advantages which it gives to those outside.
It is a perfectly plain issue. It is not as cheap to produce sugar in Britain or to buy sugar under a preference from our islands as it would be to buy sugar from abroad and to charge the full rate of duty thereupon. What I ask the House to support is a decision taken by other Governments than this, that it is desirable that a certain production of sugar should take place here, that it is desirable that while the industry is reorganising assistance should temporarily be continued, that it is desirable that the great reorganisation of the industry which is
going on now should be welcomed and fostered. The passages which I could easily quote from the speeches of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite in favour of such planning and such reorganisation, have no meaning unless they apply to precisely those steps which the two sides of the industry, home-producing and importing, are taking just now. On these general lines I ask the House to give a Second Reading to the Bill.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. CHARLES BROWN: I beg to move to leave out "now," and at the end of the Question to add "upon this day six months."
The Minister of Agriculture is unlike most of his colleagues in the present Government. He differs from them very considerably. Having listened to his speech I have been driven to the conclusion that there is nothing in the political history of the last two-and-a-half years that he regrets so much as the departure from the National Government of right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen of the Liberal party. That seems to be the greatest grievance the Minister has. Indeed it has been a considerable advantage to him, for if they had not left the National Government, I do not know what he would have done for an introduction to some of the speeches on the new economic ideas which he expounds to the House from time to time. I am rather inclined to think that the introduction to his speech to-night has been occasioned by the disturbance caused to him by the publication of the latest Liberal document. He evidently finds it necessary at the earliest possible opportunity to answer that document in the House of Commons. Obviously, that is a sign of the fact that he has been seriously disturbed by some of the arguments in that publication.
The Minister of Agriculture looks out on the economic life of to-day rather differently from many of his colleagues in the Government. He feels, of course, that something must be done, and he is willing to make experiments. Some of his experiments are rather novel, and it is too early yet to see what will be their outcome. Just because of that fact, however, his action in regard to this Beet-sugar Subsidy is all the more
regrettable. In this case, he is making no new experiment at all; he is merely carrying on a bad tradition which he has inherited, and he is making all sorts of excuses for carrying on that bad tradition. What is the speech to which we have just listened to-night but a series of excuses for carrying on this Beet-sugar Subsidy? There can be no more glaring illustration of the gross incompetence of the Government than the fact that we are being asked to give a Second Reading to this Bill this evening.
This, as the Minister has frankly admitted, is an emergency Bill. We have had 10 years of the beet-sugar subsidy, and those 10 years have cost us upwards of £40,000,000. The Minister comes along to-night and says, in effect, "We have been in office two and a-half years and have had before us reports of one kind or another in regard to the sugar-beet industry; the Government have not yet been able to make up their mind on what is to be done. We have to put it off until some further period of time." The Minister of Agriculture is generally regarded as a man of action—decisive, prompt, calculated in most circumstances to do the necessary thing at the earliest possible moment. I am afraid that his reputation for being decisive and prompt will suffer very considerably from what he is doing in connection with the beet-sugar subsidy. I have a vivid recollection of what he said in the House of Commons nine months ago—in July, 1933. He himself will probably recollect something of what he said to us on that occasion. It was the occasion on which he was telling the House, when the Estimates and the Supply Vote were before the House, all about the activities of his Department, of its various functions and the work in which it was engaged. On this matter of the beet-sugar subsidy he drew for us a picture of intense Governmental activity. I have been looking up the speech which he made on that occasion, and I find, in regard to some points which were put to him by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams), that he told the House that there was going on in regard to this matter of the beet-sugar industry quite a number of inquiries, nay, all the best brains in the Department were at work on the job.
He was followed by the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot (Viscount
Wolmer), who congratulated him on the speech which he had made and on the activity of his Department, and urged him, if the Government came to a conclusion quickly during the Recess, not to wait until Parliament reassembled to announce it to the country. The Minister had actually conveyed the impression that there would be some decision during the Parliamentary Recess and that he would have something to say. But the Recess is over; Parliament has been reassembled for nearly four months, and still he has nothing of importance to say. All he can do is to come along to-night and ask the House to continue the subsidy for another 11 months, and for the next 11 months it is going to cost us nearly £3,500,000. The Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot, on that occasion—and I am mentioning this because of a point I want to put to the Minister—expressed the opinion that the acreage of sugar-beet in this country should not be allowed to increase any further. He said that because he had such great admiration for the agricultural experiment that the present Minister of Agriculture is carrying out; he did not think that this growing of sugar-beet should be allowed to go very much further, because these new marketing schemes that the Minister of Agriculture had in mind and was putting into operation might work in such a way that it would be better to concentrate on the growing of other crops and not to let sugar-beet extend at all.
I have mentioned that point because I want to ask the Minister when an industry is grown up; when can an industry be described as having passed the infant stage and to have grown up to maturity? Let me put it in this way: Is £40,000,000 enough to carry an industry through its infancy? Would he answer that question in a plain, simple, straightforward sort of way? It is a very simple question, and I think it ought to be frankly and straightly answered. Does the Minister, in view of the arguments which he has put before us to-night, intend—or do his colleagues in the Government at some later stage intend—to come along to this House and say that every industry in the country that is suffering from foreign competition of one kind or another, if it cannot be put on its feet by the methods which are being employed at present, shall be
subsidised? What about, for instance, a suggestion from the Government to subsidise the Lancashire textile industry in view of the acute competion from which it is suffering at the moment? If it is necessary to protect a tiny industry like sugar-beet and keep it in existence, how much more important is it to subsidise a great industry like the textile industry and keep that in existence? Where is that policy going to stop, in regard to keeping these industries artificially in existence?
This industry is being defended on the ground that it has given a certain amount of employment. I have been rereading with great interest the report on the sugar-beet industry issued by the Minister of Agriculture in 1931. It would be safe to say that the employment value of this industry is not very great. I do not think that anybody would claim, after he has looked carefully into the figures, that the employment value is at all great. For instance, in 1931 the staff of all the factories is given as 783. Six hundred and forty-five of those are permanent officers. The number employed for the period of the "campaign," as it is called, was 138. That period is somewhere between 90 and 100 days, but in some cases may be longer. The growth of employment in the subsidy years is particularly stressed, and I am calling attention to these figures because of a certain reference I wish to make to them in a moment. In 1924 the number of persons engaged in the industry, apart from the staff, was 1,455. In 1930, it is true, 9,900 persons were engaged in the industry, but I wish to call attention to the way in which, in the actual production of sugar from beet, processes are rapidly being rationalised. The consequence is that the employment value of the industry tends generally to decline.
Take the figures for 1924. The tons of beet per person annually were 126; in 1930 that figure had jumped up to 329 tons. If you take it in terms of hundredweights of sugar, it is 329 cwt. per person in 1924, and 841 cwt. per person in 1930. There you have an indication of a rapid process of rationalisation inside the industry itself. It is spoken of in the Report as increasing factory efficiency. That, of course, is inevitable, but if the argument of the Noble Lord the Member for Aldershot,
the point he put, is the point of view of the Government—that there should be no further very considerable increase in the acreage under cultivation so far as beet-sugar is concerned and that this industry should be regarded as having grown up—then, so far as the actual production of sugar from the beet is concerned, the employment factor will tend to decrease. There will tend to be a decline owing to the increasing factory efficiency.

Sir ERNEST SHEPPERSON: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the agricultural employment afforded in the production of the sugar beet itself?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member is quite right to interrupt me. Figures are available as to the additional number of people who have been put to work on the land. They are in the report which I have here but they are not on my notes and I do not propose to quote them. But the same sort of thing would occur I imagine in that respect. As the cultivation of sugar beet became a more familiar process on the farms of this country obviously the same thing would occur. Alternatively, it speaks badly for the farmers if, as a result of experience in cultivating this crop, they are not able to dispense with some of the volume of labour, found necessary in the earlier stages. If the farmers are to be commended for their energy and enterprise, then we must assume that rationalisation will take place on the farms as well as in the factories, though perhaps not in the same degree because there is not the same room for it on the farm as there is in the factory. But I have that consideration in mind. I was not leaving it out of account. I only want to point out that the employment factor can be seriously overstressed.
I want to come to the general question and I ask the Minister and the House, where, to-day, can we find that enterprise and initiative which is said to be the foundation of our present economic system? We have had to pay a subsidy of £40,000,000 to attract a capital investment of less than £6,000,000 in this industry. That is what we have done up to this stage. Does any hon. Member here think for one moment that if that kind of policy had been adopted in days gone by, it would have been pos-
sible to have built up, on the basis of private enterprise, the industries which have nourished in this country? Did anybody ever think of doing it in that way? I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite and Ministers in this Government are all the time giving away the fundamentals of their case as to the basis on which our economic system is said to exist. They are throwing overboard all those fundamental principles. They are coming to this House regularly to tell us that private enterprise and initiative can no longer effectively function in this country and that State subsidies of one kind or another are necessary. That is the charge which the Minister has to meet and to answer. He tells the House to-night that a decision cannot be reached about this industry because certain negotiations are in progress between the refiners and the producers of sugar beet. He tells us that a committee of inquiry is being set up and that in due course it will report. Of course he hopes that out of the negotiations another method of dealing with this matter will emerge. What does he hope to see emerge out of the negotiations? The establishment of a gigantic sugar trust in this country. What will be the outcome of that development, if no other machinery is set up to deal with it? Inevitably, it will be the exploitation of the consumers of sugar.
We are entitled to bring forward these criticisms against the continuance of this subsidy for a further 11 months and to make our protest on the Second Beading of this Bill. We are not surprised that the Government are adopting this course. It is in keeping with the general course of political conduct pursued by them. Let me indicate the general course which they are pursuing. It is to bribe steamship companies to build great liners; to bribe farmers to grow wheat; to bribe people to manufacture beet sugar. Yet if any of us who sit on these benches went out into the country and suggested that the power and wealth of the State should be used to relieve the poverty of the people we should be told that it was a gross form of political bribery and corruption. No worse political bribery has ever been perpetrated in this country than the bribery by this Government of certain sections of electors in one form or another. I am sure that hon. Members
opposite will not object to me using this phrase, but they will know precisely what I mean when I say that they have bought every seat they hold by the distribution of the bounty of the State in many forms to landowners, farmers, manufacturers, to armament firms, to nearly every vested interest in the country. I know we shall protest in vain against the Second Reading of this Bill, but we shall register our votes against it in the Lobby because we feel that this Bill is only in keeping with that political bribery of which this National Government is the most pronounced exponent of any Government this country has ever known.

9.44 p.m.

Mr. LEONARD: I beg to second the Amendment.
I desire also to express my surprise at the length of time which has been found necessary to enable this industry to make some effort towards organisation. I think that, irrespective of the places in which we sit in this House, there must be general astonishment among hon. Members at the fact that 10 years have elapsed since this industry was established, and yet we are told to-day that-further support has to be directed to it. The Minister, in stating the case for the Government, has admitted that the load borne by the consuming public has been heavy. If the Government recognised that the burden was heavy, was it not possible for them to have expedited the inquiry, promised in April, 1932, before bringing forward this proposal to extend the subsidy in order to help the sugar industry to complete an apprenticeship which has lasted far too long already? I am of opinion that when the reorganisation activity which is taking place in the industry materialises, the result will be a new group of persons in this country exercising monopoly powers after having received a bounty of over £40,000,000 in State subsidy towards the stabilisation of the industry.
In view of the fact that the Measure is being introduced under the wing of the Minister of Agriculture, I wonder if he would tell us specifically what has the farming interest ever got out of this industry? Has it received anything commensurate with the sums of money paid in subsidy to the factory section of the sugar-beet industry. I am speaking from memory, but there was a report from the
Minister of Agriculture, in, I think, 1931, when a complaint was made that the proportion of the subsidy that went to the farmers was far too small. I would like to know if anything has taken place to help the farmer who was, I suppose, the man most thought of when the matter was taken up by the House. The factory owners themselves for a considerable proportion of the 10 years have received from 10 to 25 per cent. in dividends in addition to considerable reserves. I admit that in the February issue of the Journal of the Ministry of Agriculture the amount of dividend is shown to be down to £5 4s., but in addition there are reserves and credit balances equivalent to 22 per cent. of the share loan capital. They are still generously treated and in a happy position compared with other industries. Since the Act started there have been years so beneficial to the sugar industry that the subsidy has exceeded the total value of the sugar crop. Can no better use be made of the land of Great Britain than that? Is there no more beneficial interest for agriculture than the interest which has received this help?
Reference has been made on more than one occasion to the value of the employment that has accrued to certain working people in this country, but you have to place against the number of men who have been absorbed the dislocation caused elsewhere, and I think the Secretary of State for Scotland could give some detailed information as to the considerable dislocation that has been caused in the refining districts of Greenock and elsewhere by the operation of the subsidy. I would like to direct the right hon. Gentleman's attention to one who knows something about this industry and who may be in the near future a beneficiary of the new proposals. Sir Leonard Lyle, in the "Financial Times," on 14th December, 1931, said that:
The actual cost to the taxpayers of the subsidy and the Preference at the end of the subsidy period would amount approximately to £37,000,000.
We know now it will be over £40,000,000—
and it has been stated in the House that for every man brought into employment by the undertaking the State has had to pay more that £2 every day.
The figure actually given here, I believe, shows a cost of no less than £384 per annum, and that
is a state of affairs that would not be tolerated in any industry with less power and prestige behind it. I admit the possibility of a lower subsidy, but, even if it is lower, the principle is just as vicious, and I desire to see it departed from altogether.
I have referred to the dividend and reserves accumulated by the companies, and I would ask the attention of the House to where some of these dividends are being directed, because I have before me details connected with four of the English companies. They are managed by a gentleman who comes from Holland. The House will pardon me if I do not attempt to pronounce his initial name, but his last name is Van Rossum. He is evidently a very shrewd man as far as sugar is concerned, and eminently capable of looking after his shareholders, because I find in the six years ending 31st March, 1931, the total earnings of the four companies was no less than £3,455,000 after Income Tax had been paid. It is allocated as follows: Depreciation written off, £1,192,000; placed to reserve, £960,000; dividends paid, £1,303,000. These stupendous profits, I would ask the House to bear in mind, have been earned in six years on a capital of £1,800,000. No wonder these gentlemen are desirous of keeping a grip on an industry so profitable to themselves, and are glad to have a breathing-space and £3,500,000, and the monopoly power to be given to them. The value of the net liquid assets of the company in the month referred to amounted to £1,423,000.
With regard to the expenditure of these companies, those who interest themselves in calling upon Russia to spend money in this country should note that the total expenditure by 15 companies on plant and machines paid to foreign countries was £1,023,000. The "Investors' Review" says that the Anglo-Dutch companies in six years have nearly all their capital represented by solid cash, assets with buildings, plant and machinery thrown in. From the details of these four companies at Somerset House, I find that two definitely Dutch companies have interests of £336,000 in the English Beet Company. The English beet company was interested in two, one to the extent of £30,000 and the other £50,000. The Prudential Assurance are
interested in three companies—£85,000 in one, £37,000 in another and £40,000 in a third. With regard to two gentlemen from Threadneedle Street, they go from a humble £3,000 up to £50,000 in four companies. Others not specified, but likely to include foreign money, range from £75,000 to £109,000.
That is a clear indication that we are subsidising foreign capital in this country, the proceeds of which will be going outside, despite all the outcry that has been made. In all the 15 companies no less than 33 per cent. of the holdings are foreign. There is no reason why we should hesitate in attacking this proposal to give further help to companies such as I have indicated in detail, and I want to ask the Minister, if he does intend to go on with this matter to-night, whether he will give an undertaking that at least he will place a limit to the acreage which he will recognise for subsidy and, failing the possibility of limiting acreage, whether he will not, in view of the details I have given, fix a specific sum which the Government are prepared to pay in subsidy, and not leave it as it is at present?

9.55 p.m.

Sir H. SAMUEL: The House is well aware from previous discussions that of all the many items of expenditure in our immense national Budget, the case for this expenditure upon the beet-sugar subsidy is really the weakest of all. The Minister is aware of that too. He must have felt in his speech that he had a poor case to present to the House or he would not have pursued the debating line which he did. He began with a few party jibes which were quite unworthy of his own reputation and which would have been regarded as unworthy even in an undergraduates' debating society. He mentioned a statement of policy of this party which has just been published, and said we would readily admit subsidised products coming in from foreign countries to compete with our own, although in that statement it is clearly stated that we opposed subsidies whether given here or abroad and would be prepared to take measures against them. He amazed me when he took to task the Labour party for having introduced the Bill giving a large subsidy and went on to say that under the Conservative Government that subsidy was reduced by one-half, when he
knew quite well that the original Bill introduced by hon. Members above the Gangway when they were a Government made the provision that on a certain date the subsidy should be reduced by one-half. It was not my concern, but I could not sit still and hear such a misrepresentation of the facts given to the House without at least doing this justice to the party above the Gangway.
Finally, in order to introduce political prejudice, the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to broaden the issue and brought in the whole question of whether the State should come to the aid in any circumstances of any industry in order under that cloud to get away with the particular proposal which is now before the House. We are not going to be tempted to enlarge the scope of this Debate. This is a Bill for continuing the sugar subsidy, and my remarks will be addressed entirely to that. It is not to be considered on the same footing as the other Protectionist measures which have been carried by this House because even the Conservative Economy Committee in this Parliament in their report had a paragraph urging that this subsidy should be abolished, although they went on to say that provision should be made to safeguard the industry in another manner. Further, even the docile "Times" had a leading article some time ago describing this as an unnecessary subsidy and calling for its discontinuance. I invite the House therefore to bring its attention to this matter alone, in isolation, without being led away by the attempt of the Minister of Agriculture to introduce general considerations which do not arise on this occasion.
The House is in an unfortunate position in debating this matter, because there has been no inquiry such as was definitely promised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer two years ago. There has been no recent report upon the condition of the industry, and the House has only the information which was presented in a report published by the Board of Agriculture in 1931, together with such supplementary information as may be obtained from answers to questions. From that report I gather that the working of the industry compared with the Continental sugar industry is as follows. There may have been some progress since. The right hon. Gentleman
gave some figures this evening, but I was not able to follow them precisely as he gave them, and there may have been some progress since, but it has in the main not altered the situation which is shown in the report presented by the Board of Agriculture in 1931. In Continental countries which produce beet-sugar and with which we are competing, the farmer receives in payment for his beet about one-half of what we are paying to the British farmer. His crop per acre gives 50 per cent. more sugar than the British crop gives. The cost of transport to the factories on the Continent is one-third the cost of transport in this country. The cost of manufacture is two-thirds. These are the latest official figures to be published, and I quote them as such. There may have been some slight improvement since, but I have no information to show that it is at all considerable.
If you compare the production here, not with the Continent, but with countries that produce cane sugar, the situation is even more striking. An answer was given by the present Home Secretary when he was Minister for Agriculture on the 10th March, 1932. The production of sugar per acre in Great Britain is 22 cwts.; in Jamaica, where it is remarkably low, 27 cwts.; in Trinidad, 54 cwts.; in Java, 119 cwts. In Java, where the industry is very highly developed, where they have an administration which pays great attention to agricultural research, and where they have developed a sugarcane with a high sugar content, the amount of sugar produced per acre is five times the amount in this country. Lord Olivier, who has made a careful study of this question, and was formerly Governor of Jamaica, wrote an article in the "Times" in which he said:
As to yield, cane cultivation on a minimum average (standard of economic efficiency yields almost exactly twice as much raw sugar an acre as British beet cultivation; twice as much sucrose at half the cost a ton; and there is more attainable margin for improvement in West Indian cane yields than can be hoped for in beet.
Therefore, this industry in this country is entirely artificial. It is utterly uneconomical. It is not as though there were a great world shortage of sugar. There is a world glut and the sugar-producing countries are endeavouring to curtail their production and to arrive at some combination that may succeed in
maintaining remunerative prices while the British taxpayers have been paying tens of millions to increase the sugar production on this grossly extravagant scale, thereby increasing still further the world glut.
Although we may be surprised at the extremely poor production of sugar in our climate and on our soil compared with climates and soils naturally adapted for this particular foodstuff, that has not prevented those who have been engaged in this industry from reaping very large profits. The report of 1931 shows that there had been invested in this industry £8,700,000 of capital. Within six years those companies have been able to put by to depreciation, reserves and un-appropriated balances, £4,494,000. They have been able in six years to put aside sufficient money to repay one-half of the whole of their original capital, and in addition in the last year given in the Report, the profits came to an average dividend of 13 per cent. There are some later figures with regard to these companies. The "Ministry of Agriculture Journal" for last month gave the figures for 1933. Several of the companies have not been doing well during the last year or two, but others are still very prosperous. The Ipswich Company, which for many years paid 12½per cent., now pays 6 per cent. tax free, which is equivalent to 8 per cent. The Central Sugar Company paid last year 10 per cent. tax free, equivalent to 13 per cent. The English Beet Sugar Company 10 per cent., tax free, the Ely Beet Sugar Company 10 per cent., tax free. The average for all of them, taking into account those which are at present unremunerative, was, according to the Ministry of Agriculture Journal, 5.4 per cent.—not so bad in these times of trade depression. While we may rejoice that such ample profits should have been earned by those who had the enterprise to take up this industry, we are not so pleased when we remember that the whole of this has been paid out of the pockets of the British taxpayer.
The assistance given to the industry is of two kinds. There is the cash payment, which under this Bill is to be continued at the rate of £3,250,000 this year, and the industry also has half the taxation remitted which would have been collected if the sugar had been imported
from foreign sources. In a paper which was presented to Parliament in connection with the Supplementary Estimates a week or two ago there was a footnote to say that this sugar had paid Excise duty to the amount of £2,000,000. Yes, but under the ordinary taxation it would have paid £4,600,000. No one will doubt that this rebate of taxation is a loss to the Exchequer and a gain to the industry, and is just as much a charge upon national funds, for the benefit of this industry, as if the money were paid out in cash. In the report published by the Ministry of Agriculture there are tables showing the State assistance given to the industry and they include "(a) subsidy, (b) rebate of taxation." When the Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked on 13th February what was the total assistance given to the industry he said:
The total amount of State assistance given to the beet sugar industry in subsidy and revenue abatement, from 1924 up to the present date, is £39,631,000."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1934; col. 1754, Vol. 285.]
To quote again the "Times" newspaper in connection with this question of the rebate:
If the sugar had been imported the Exchequer would have received considerably more in duties and would not have had to pay out any subsidy at all.
I hope that in this Debate no hon. Member will come forward to say "Well, the subsidy is £3,250,000, the Excise is paid £2,000,000, and therefore, on balance, we pay only £1,250,000." On the contrary, the subsidy is £3,250,000, the loss of duty is £2,500,000, and in addition we have just had a Supplementary Estimate, which was passed a few days ago, for £450,000, so that the total we are now voting for this industry is £6,250,000. Even that is not all, because under the Trade Facilities Act these companies were guaranteed capital to the extent of £2,200,000, and out of that £400,000 has been written off—it has not been repaid although due, and it is I believe regarded as irrecoverable. Even that does not conclude the tale, because the British shipping industry, which as we all know is in very dire straits, loses in freights on account of this subsidy the sum of £300,000 to £400,000 a year. The report of the Chamber of Shipping, published last November, gives the loss to the shipping industry at £300,000 to £400,000 a year
because of the sugar subsidy and the discontinuance of the freightage which they had previously earned.
What is the value of the sugar which is produced? One of my hon. Friends asked on 7th March what was the market value of the sugar produced under subsidy, and the reply given, a very remarkable reply, was that it was £8,400,000 duty paid. Why should it be "duty paid"? We were not asking the value including duty, we were asking the value of the sugar produced at the factories, and the definition "market value" is included in this very Bill, the Schedule stating that market value is to be calculated as the c.i.f. value at the port of entry of an equivalent quantity of sugar. Then my hon. Friend asked another question, on 12th March, as to what would be the market value of the sugar without duty, and the answer given was £6,300,000. My hon. Friend was much surprised, and we made inquiries, and found that for the sake of this Parliamentary answer they had included the subsidies, and that as a matter of fact the true market value, according to the definition given in the Bill itself, was £2,900,000. Why should there have been this reluctance, this failure, to give precisely the figure asked—giving first a figure of £8,400,000 and then £6,300,000, when the right figure was £2,900,000? For this sugar, worth rather less than £3,000,000, we paid over £3,000,000 in subsidy, £2,500,000 rebate in taxation, and, this last year, nearly £500,000 under a Supplementary Estimate, and we lose £300,000 or £400,000 in shipping freights.
What are the advantages to be set on the other side? No one would conceivably make any such proposition as this unless there were some colourable case for it. In the first place, the farmers receive a cheque for this subsidy each year, and naturally are very pleased to have it. My constituents in the cotton industry, who have suffered terribly by a fall in the price of cotton goods and by their exclusion from export markets, through no fault of their own—though I will not deny that there are defects in the organisation of the industry—would equally rejoice to receive cheques from the taxpayer to increase their incomes. In addition, it is said, and I believe with truth, though the matter is, I am told, controverted by some agriculturists, that the beet crop is advantageous to agri-
culture because of the favourable effect it has upon succeeding corn crops, and therefore it is a national advantage that it should be continued. I have here a statement circulated to Members of the House by the British Beet-Sugar Society in which they say:
Farmers are practically unanimous as to the improved yields of corn crops following sugar beet. It is not possible to arrive at exact figures, but observations by experienced people indicate they are 10 to 15 per cent.
That is very satisfactory, but why should the taxpayer bribe farmers to grow a-crop which not only provides them with a useful feeding stuff in the tops of the beets, but also gives 10 to 15 per cent. more yield with succeeding crops? If this is a fact, and I do not dispute that it is, it is rather a reason why there should not be a subsidy than that there should be a subsidy.
With regard to the next point. The Minister of Agriculture on 22nd December, 1932, said that the average number of people employed in the factories was 7,130; that about 5,360 of them were seasonal, they are employed for only about three months, and that only about 2,000 were employed during the whole year. On the farms there is a certain amount of employment, particulars of which I will give in a moment. That, again, is undoubtedly of advantage to those counties which have that number of people employed. No doubt this expenditure of £40,000,000 of public money within a short period in a comparatively small district is highly popular. It would be very surprising if it were not; any other district would be glad to have £40,000,000 of public money spent upon it. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. C. Brown) said with great truth that this is one of the most salient examples of mass bribery in our present-day politics. A recent writer, a modern Greek and a professor, in an article which I happened to come across, wrote this, not long ago, and his words I think are very cogent:
Of the two kinds of corruption—that in which the politicians take the bribes, and that in which they give the bribes—there is much to be said for the view that the second, which is the modern kind, is the more dangerous to the public interest.
This is an admirable example of politicians giving bribes to an industry in a particular locality at the public expense and to the public detriment.
As to the cost. No one denies that advantages accrue from the expenditure, but are the advantages proportionate to the expense? The facts lend themselves to this conclusion: The Government might pay all the workers who are now employed on the farms in the production of sugar beet, £2 per week to stand idle; they might give all the workers employed in the factories £3 per week to stand idle; they might give all the farmers who now grow sugar beet £3 an acre to grow something else; they might pay all those beet sugar companies their full dividends, not according to last year but according to one of their good years, to keep their factories inoperative, and then the Government might have enough money to buy an equivalent amount of sugar and distribute it to the populace for nothing—free, but charging only the amount of the Customs Duty. I am sure that every Member of the House will think that this is incredible. I will give exact figures to substantiate my statement.
An answer given in this House was to the effect that the number of man-weeks per year in field work for farmers for the growing of this crop was 692,000 on the average, during the period of the sugar subsidy. I suggest that all those men should be given £2 per week to do nothing, and that would amount to £1,384,000. The factories employ 5,000 workers for three months, who should have £3 per week; that would amount to £180,000. They employ 2,000 people for the year, and at £3 per week that would be about £300,000. I suggest that every farmer should get £3 per acre in order not to grow beet; there are 366,000 acres, so that that is just over £1,000,000. I suggest that the dividends should be paid to the companies at the rate of their year 1930–1931, when they were paid an average of 8.8 per cent. Pay them 8.8 per cent. if only they would not work their factories—that would amount to £411,000. The total of all these amounts is £3,275,000, and that would leave a saving of £3,000,000 upon the present State expenditure, which would be enough to buy the whole crop of sugar, worth £2,900,000, and to distribute it to the population free, charging for it only Customs duty. Over and above that, we should have the advantage of £300,000 or £400,000, for our shipping industry, which
they would receive and would be very glad to have.
I submit, and have submitted for years past, that it is absolutely essential that this matter should be probed to the bottom. It is a very grave scandal, and the House of Commons has been doing far less than its duty as the guardian of the taxpayers' purse in not insisting upon a full and impartial investigation of the whole matter. Take, for example, this report, published by the Board of Agriculture. It says that the report states the facts but the Board take no responsibility for what it contains. That is not surprising, for it was prepared by two gentlemen, one a member of the markets division of the Ministry and the other who was, to use the words of the report itself, selected as representing the industry. The report was prepared in consultation with a third gentleman, whose qualifications were not that he represented the consumers or the public, or was an independent person. He was appointed in a consultative capacity, being a director of the Anglo-Scottish group of beet-suger factories. That is the only inquiry that there has been so far. It states the facts very ably, and no doubt impartially, because it included a civil servant, who, I am sure, would not lend himself to anything that was not absolutely accurate; but, of course, an inquiry of that kind could not be regarded as the kind of inquiry which the public are entitled to have, investigating the whole policy of the matter. In April, 1932, when I was a Member of the Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a specific pledge on this subject. He said in terms that there would be an impartial inquiry which would go into the whole matter; and he said, further, that that body would be asked to report before the present Subsidy Act expired. The right hon. Gentleman now says, and, indeed, it is obvious, that it will not report before the present Subsidy Act expires, and, therefore, the pledge given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech has been broken. He undertook that there should be an inquiry. There has not been an inquiry.
The Minister of Agriculture gives all sorts of ingenious—or rather, not very ingenious—explanations. He repeats what he said in the House on the 6th March, namely, that the Government were
so busy over the Lausanne Conference and the Ottawa Agreements that they really could not give attention to this matter, and, therefore, the committee could not be appointed. But how much time does it take to appoint a committee? I am not aware that the Minister of Agriculture of the day was at Lausanne, though I think he was at Ottawa, and certainly the Government as a whole was not so immobilised and paralysed that it could not appoint a committee for more than a year. Then the right hon. Gentleman says, with somewhat elephantine humour, that the Government were so convulsed by the resignations of some of their colleagues, and by the dissensions with regard to fiscal policy, that it was perfectly impossible for them to do anything so mundane as the appointment of a committee of this kind. These explanations do not carry conviction. Indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated quite frankly what the facts really are, and the right hon. Gentleman himself says that this is the explanation of the more recent delay. The Chancellor of the Exchequer a year ago, on the 16th March, 1933, said:
The beet sugar and sugar refining industries have been conferring with the object of submitting agreed proposals for the consideration of the Government. These proposals have now been received and are being examined.
That was a year ago.
In the meantime, I have thought it desirable to defer the appointment of the Committee to which the right hon. Member refers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1933, col. 2132; Vol. 275.]
That is the simple fact of the case. It was intended to create a great sugar monopoly trust, and, until those plans had matured, it was decided not to have any inquiry at all; and only now is the inquiry being set up.
The Committee that is being set up is, in my view, totally inadequate for the task. It is to be a committee of three members, presided over by a distinguished lawyer. When you have an expenditure of £40,000,000 of public money, when a very great question of policy is involved, and when there are many difficult matters to be carefully probed, a small departmental committee of three persons is quite inadequate. You want something much more in the nature of a Royal Commission, or a large committee consisting,
I will not say of antagonistic elements, but a number of people, including representatives of the consumers—people who will not easily be misled, who will carry the matter through, and who will be qualified to advise the House and the country on the matter as a whole and on the question of policy. I can well believe that these three gentlemen, when they have met, will present a very able report, giving many statistical facts, but they will say, "Of course we cannot be expected to say whether this is a right thing to do; we cannot take the responsibility of making any recommendation that might involve shutting down the whole, of this industry;" and we are likely to get a somewhat diffident and very probably inconclusive report. The inquiry ought to have been on a much larger scale, covering the whole question systematically and thoroughly. There has been this delay of two years since the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised the inquiry, which has never yet been set up, and there has been a delay of a year since the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave the answer which I have quoted to the effect that the proposals of the industry had been received, and until they had been examined, they were not going to set up the Committee—a very costly delay. About £6,000,000 is the cost to the nation of this delay in addition to such costs of such delay as may have been due to the Lausanne and Ottawa Conferences. This is an industry of which the "Times" said:
It was the intention, and morally the condition, of the original Act that the production of home-grown sugar should become self-supporting.
Unquestionably, when Parliament 10 years ago was asked to sanction this experiment, every one held, and its advocates no doubt sincerely believed, that within a decade, which is a long time, this industry would be able to find its own legs and would no longer be a burden on the taxpayer. The 10 years have expired, and, as always happens in such cases, the infant industry complains that it has not yet grown up and it must still continue to be spoon-fed. Now we have this latest development, that there is to be a combination of the refiners, the producers, the merchants and others. About a year or so ago there was a quarrel between the beet industry and the sugar refiners. The refiners com-
plained that this highly subsidised industry was using its factories to refine riot only their beet sugar but also imported sugar, and they said, "Why should we have to submit to this subsidised competition with our own industry?" There was quite a campaign by the refiners against the sugar-beet growers. They reconciled themselves. They made a combination between the two and they are now excellent friends. I noticed that at last annual meeting of Tate and Lyle's, the chief sugar refining company, in December, Sir Ernest Tate, the Chairman, gave a not unsatisfactory account of the present condition of that company. He explained that they were carrying out a great reorganisation of their sugar works at Liverpool which would involve a very large sum, and they were meeting that out of profits to a considerable extent. But for that, they would be able to give a larger dividend. However, he was able to declare a dividend for the year of 17 per cent.
There is to be formed this combination under the Agricultural Marketing Act. Parliament will not longer be troubled with these controversial Debates. This grossly extravagant industry will still be maintained, possibly receiving still this £6,000,000 a year to keep it going, but it will be taken out of the consumer. It will be removed from the Debates in the House, and will be put into the grocers' bills. As the "Economist" newspaper said the other day, the proposal is that the uneconomic sugar producer should be maintained in future out of an indirect, invisible tax instead of the present direct, and visible one. I feel that the future historian, examining the records of this time and reading the urgent appeals made in this time of depression for ruthless public economy, reading of the sacrifices made in order to balance the Budget by the servants of the State, by the taxpayers, and by the unemployed, will be amazed at the successful audacity of this raid upon the public purse.

10.30 p.m.

Lord WILLOUGHBY de ERESBY: It is with the greatest diffidence that I rise to address this House. I am still a comparative new comer to this House, and it is not for me at this late hour to
monopolise the time at the disposal of the House. I realise that there are many more experienced and more mature speakers than I desirous of talking on what appears to be an extremely controversial subject. Seeing that I have only once before made use of the time at the disposal of this House, I would pray for indulgence for a few moments, because no one can speak with more whole-hearted sincerity than I in asking the House to support the Bill which we are now discussing. It does not appear to me to be the most appropriate or the most opportune moment for discussing either the merits or the demerits of the policy of aiding industry by means of subsidy. The beet-sugar subsidy has now been in existence since 1925. The farmers in many parts of the country have been encouraged by successive Governments in the past to include sugar beet among the normal rotation of their crops, and many of them are relying on this further support in the coming year. It is a crop which employs a very considerable amount of labour on the land, and, thanks to the subsidy, farmers have in the past received sufficient return for their outlay to enable them to meet their wage bill.
The conditions in agriculture to-day are still, unfortunately, not as we would all like to see them, and I do not hesitate to say that the condition of agriculture in many parts of this country would be very considerably worse if it had not been for the existence of this subsidy. In spite of the remark made by the hon. Gentleman opposite, certainly in those parts of the country which I know, there would be many more men out of employment to-day than there are at the moment, many more acres out of cultivation, and many more farmers, not only out of pocket, but in the bankruptcy court if it had not been for this means of assistance. It may appear to have been expensive in the past, but it must be remembered that for several years it has been practically the only assistance which has been given to the farmers, and has had to carry the total cost of the farm.
Another line of attack is that this assistance is being given to an uneconomic branch of agriculture. I do not attempt to deal with this attack. It will be idle to pretend that the future development of sugar-beet growing is in the best in-
terests of agriculture or the country as a whole. It is not a branch of agriculture which I or, I am sure, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture would wish to encourage if circumstances were fortunately very different from what they are at the moment. There are other branches of agriculture which I consider can be developed to greater advantage than sugar-beet. There are also other means of assistance than subsidies, such as, in many cases, an increased measure of protection which I would prefer to be asking this House to support to-night. But I would seriously ask those who are going into the Lobby in opposition to this Bill to in some way justify their action in the future. Let them make every effort to hasten the moment when we need no longer rely on the beet-sugar subsidy to keep our farm workers in employment and our farmers out of the bankruptcy court. Let them hasten this day by giving their support and exercising their undoubted powers of oratory in support of many other Measures which the Minister of Agriculture from time to time lays before this House to advance and encourage those branches of agriculture which are most suitable in this country for further development.
I am sure that it is recognised by every Member of this House that it is a matter of the very greatest national importance that we should once again have a prosperous agriculture and a healthy and vigorous agricultural population. Anyone who has been connected with agriculture during the past few years of acute depression cannot but realise that in many parts of the country the beet-sugar subsidy has been a lifebelt to the farmer in a very stormy sea. No one would choose a lifebelt as an ideal means of conveyance across a stormy sea. We should all prefer to travel in the "Majestic," but I am glad to say that, thanks to the tireless efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, many to-day do see land ahead where two and a-half years ago there was nothing but a fathomless void. When land has been reached or the "Majestic" or some other more comfortable means of conveyance is handy, then will be the time to deprive the farmer of his lifebelt, but not now when he is still struggling to keep his head above water.

10.32 p.m.

Captain HEILGERS: The speech of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) may be popular in Darwen but in my part of the world, in East Anglia, it would be far from popular. I must admit that I was almost convinced by the wonderful prospect that the right hon. Gentleman put before me as to how I was going to draw something like £6 an acre and to live in comfort and leisure for ever afterwards.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Three pounds.

Captain HEILGERS: We must not allow sugar beet to die in this country. I would remind hon. Members opposite that beet-sugar forms 40 per cent. of the production of sugar in the world, and it is grown in every country in Europe. France grows two and a-half times as much as we do, to maintain a more or less similar population; Italy grows two and a-half times more than we do and Germany five times as much. This growth of sugar beet is subsidised or protected in every one of those countries in Europe which are growing it today. Why should we be the country to allow the sugar beet industry to die? May I put to hon. Members what it means to me as a farmer? I have roughly 13 per cent. of my arable area under sugar beet, but it represents 25 per cent. of my takings. I wish that I could grow more than 13 per cent. of my acreage but I cannot grow more because with the present capacity of the factories we are not allowed to contract for a bigger acreage. If, however, the nagging at the beet-sugar subsidy were to cease and the country would face the fact of the great advantage that the growing of sugar beet is to the arable side of agriculture, and particularly to the eastern seaboard, and we were allowed to increase our sugar beet acreage, as I hope we shall, our employment value would be enormously increased. I employ seven extra men on my farm throughout the year because I grow sugar beet.
Take other figures which have been given to-night. There are 110,000 people who are affected by the sugar beet subsidy. There are over 40,000 growers, 29,000 men employed throughout the year, 30,000 casually employed, and there are now 10,000 employed in factories. That is a total of 110,000 who will be
affected if the subsidy is withdrawn. £7,000,000 is paid out by the factories, and over £1,000,000 paid out in transport, road and rail, coal, jute and in other ways. There is no other industry which gives so large a return for money advanced by the State as sugar beet. In other industries £1,000,000 gives employment to between 3,000 and 4,000 people, but in sugar beet it gives employment to over 6,500 people according to the figures given by the Minister of Agriculture. I think that only those who are the enemies of arable agriculture and the enemies of those farmers and farm workers who produce food for the people in the great towns, will vote against the Second Reading.

10.42 p.m.

Sir E. SHEPPERSON: I have no desire to detain the House and, indeed, I am only tempted to rise by the speech of the right hon. Member for Darwen (Sir H. Samuel) and the speech of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment. The only point I want to make is connected with the question of employment in agriculture as a result of this subsidy. The argument of the hon. Member who moved the rejection was that there was not much employment given in factories as a result of this subsidy. I accept the figures he gave, but he did not mention the increase of employment in agriculture itself. The beet sugar industry was subsidised for the one purpose of assisting British agriculture, and the question is whether this experiment has been a success. The right hon. Member for Darwen says that it has not, but there I am in direct opposition to his opinion. I suggest that it has been a great success indeed in helping British agriculture. There are 365,000 acres under sugar beet this

year. I have grown sugar beet for many years and my experience has taught me that you cannot grow sugar beet without an expenditure of from £8 to £10 per acre in labour. This industry therefore has consumed annually in labour for some years practically about £3,000,000 per year, and almost the entire amount that is given as a subsidy to this industry by the State finds its way, directly or indirectly, into the pockets of agricultural labourers. It is for that reason, in the interests of the agricultural labourer, that I submit that the House ought to support the Bill.

I would suggest one other point which has not been referred to so far. The maintenance of the sugar-beet industry means an increase in the total acreage of land under arable cultivation. Sugar-beet cultivation is one crop in the rotation of arable cultivation. Sugar-beet can be grown only one year out of three. Therefore, as 365,000 acres are cultivated for sugar-beet, something like 1,000,000 acres of land have to be kept under arable cultivation. It is because I feel that British agriculture in the last 10 years has been assisted to an enormous extent by the maintenance of the sugar-beet industry that I am supporting the Bill. The Bill carries on the industry for only one more year. Like another hon. Member who has spoken I would have preferred to have supported a Bill which dealt with the importation of sugar by preferential tariff treatment rather than by subsidy. But as an agriculturist I am not going to quibble as to the method by which agriculture is helped. Since this Bill is one to help British agriculture I give it my support without any question.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 189; Noes, 49.

Division No. 174.]
AYES.
[10.48 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry


Albery, Irving James
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Crooke, J. Smedley


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Burnett, John George
Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)


Aske, Sir Robert William
Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Croom-Johnson, R. P.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Cross, R. H.


Bateman, A. L.
Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Christie, James Archibald
Culverwell, Cyril Tom


Bottom, A. C
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer
Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.


Boulton, W. W.
Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Davies, Edward C. (Montgomery)


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Colman, N. C. D.
Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
Doran, Edward


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Cook, Thomas A.
Duckworth, George A. V.


Broadbent, Colonel John
Cooper, A. Duff
Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)


Edmondson, Major A. J.
Lees-Jones, John
Remer, John R.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Rickards, George William


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Levy, Thomas
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Liddall, Walter S.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Little, Graham, Sir Ernest
Runge, Norah Cecil


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Lloyd, Geoffrey
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'ndsw'th)
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Everard, W. Lindsay
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)
Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Liverp'l)


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander
Salt, Edward W.


Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Lyons, Abraham Montagu
Scone, Lord


Glossop, C. W. H.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Selley, Harry R.


Goff, Sir Park
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd, N.)
McCorquodale, M. S.
Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.


Graves, Marjorle
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Smith, Sir J. Walker (Barrow-in-F.)


Greene, William P. C.
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Somervell, Sir Donald


Grimston, R. V.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, East)


Gunston, Captain D. W.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Spens, William Patrick


Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Hammersley, Samuel S.
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Hanbury, Cecil
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Stevenson, James


Hanley, Dennis A.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)


Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Milne, Charles
Stones, James


Harbord, Arthur
Mitcheson, G.G.
Storey, Samuel


Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Morris, John Patrick (Salford, N.)
Strauss, Edward A.


Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Hellgers, Captain F. F. A
Morrison, William Shepherd
Sutcliffe, Harold


Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Thompson, Sir Luke


Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Munro, Patrick
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Hepworth, Joseph
Nail, Sir Joseph
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Nail-Cain, Hon. Ronald
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Hornby, Frank
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert S.
Nunn, William
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Horsbrugh, Florence
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
Wallace, John (Dunfermline)


Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Patrick, Colin M.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Peat, Charles U.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Percy, Lord Eustace
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Hutchison, W. D. (Essex, Romf'd)
Pybus, Sir Percy John
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Jackson, J. C. (Heywood & Radcliffe)
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)
Willoughby de Eresby, Lord


Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Jones, Sir G. W. H. (Stoke New'gton)
Ramsbotham, Herwald
Wise, Alfred R.


Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Rankin, Robert



Latham, Sir Herbert Paul
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Reid, William Allan (Derby)
Mr. Blindell and Mr. Womersley.


NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Groves, Thomas E.
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
Maxton, James


Banfield, John William
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Ztl'nd)
Milner. Major James


Batey, Joseph
Harris, Sir Percy
Moreing, Adrian C.


Bevan, Aneurin (Ebbw Vale)
Holdsworth, Herbert
Paling, Wilfred


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Janner, Barnett
Parkinson, John Allen


Buchanan, George
Jenkins, Sir William
Rathbone, Eleanor


Cape, Thomas
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Rea, Walter Russell


Daggar, George
Lawson, John James
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Davits, David L. (Pon[...]pridd)
Leonard, William
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Edwards, Charles
Lunn, William
White, Henry Graham


Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)
Wilmot, John


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Mainwaring, William Henry
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot



Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro', W.)
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—




Mr. D. Graham and Mr. John.


Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for To-morrow.—[Captain Margesson.]

OVERSEAS TRADE BILL.

Considered in Committee.

[Captain BOURNE in the Chair.]

CLAUSE 1.—(Extension of periods during which guarantees under Overseas Trade Acts, 1920 to 1930, may be given and remain in force.)

10.56 p.m.

Mr. ALBERY: I beg to move, in page 1, line 13, to leave out "fifty" and to insert "forty-six."
I move this Amendment to give the Minister an opportunity of explaining a change which appears to have been made in the present Bill as compared with previous Measures dealing with this subject. In 1920, the Overseas Trade Bill then introduced provided for a guarantee of credits for a period of three years and thereafter, for a further period of three years, any obligations undertaken could be continued. There were subsequent renewals of that Measure. In 1930 it was again renewed and on that occasion provision was made for credit for five years and after that for an overlap of a further five years during which obligations could be liquidated. The Bill before us appears to propose an extension of credits for a period of six years and thereafter for a period of 10 years any obligations undertaken can be liquidated On the Second Reading of the Bill nothing was said about this extension of the period during which credits could be given or the much longer period given for the liquidation of obligations. Very powerful arguments are needed to justify the Committee in agreeing to this further long extension. It is not clear to me that it is not possible under this Bill as now drawn to give a credit guarantee for a period of 14 or 15 years.
The majority of these credits have, I believe, been done with Russia. The other day we had before us a Trade Agreement with Russia, and it was particularly emphasised that it was a temporary agreement. It does not seem to be suitable, if that agreement is temporary, that we should now provide for giving them credits extending even to 10 years. It is true that these credits are to be extended to other countries also but in the main these credits have not been particularly successful and it is admitted that the profit which is in the
fund at the present moment almost entirely comes from the business with Russia. The main object is to give employment in this country. I think one ought to take into account the consideration that if these credits are unduly long, it seems obvious that we cannot give as much employment as we could give if the credits were for a shorter period. The total amount which the Government are authorised to guarantee is £26,000,000. If we are to give 10 years credit it is obvious that we cannot give as many guarantees as we could give if the credits were for a shorter period. That also is a thing of which, I think, notice should be taken. I want to hear what is the Government's reason for making this considerable variation from the terms of the Bill as last introduced.

11.0 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE (Secretary, Department of Overseas Trade): I should explain that the White Paper made it clear that, in point of fact, the extension of the period during which guarantees may remain in force would enable the Department to grant a longer credit than formerly. As the hon. Member has suggested, we could, under the terms of the Bill, at the present time give a credit of over 15 years. The next period would be 14 years, and then 13 years and so on. What is known as the medium term credit business is done in each case in consultation with the Treasury, and it was agreed with them that we would in no case undertake business of more than 10 years. I repeat that undertaking in the House. We wish to have during the life of the Department as extended in this Bill, the right to go up to 10 years if necessary, and I would explain why. The extent of the period covered by the guarantee asked for in the Bill is the result of overwhelming evidence that if this feature of the Department's work is to be developed, it must be in a position if necessary to guarantee credit to 10 years. It does not mean that the Department is going in for an orgy of medium-term credits or that it will guarantee large sums which will not fall due for 10 years. In these medium-term credits, payments are spread. There is usually a substantial initial payment on the placing of the order, or at least when deliveries begin, and instalments very often become due at quarterly intervals throughout the period of delivery and
erection. Normally, only a small portion of the total would fall due at the end of the operation, and it must not be assumed, because the Department is seeking authority to guarantee credits for a maximum of 10 years that the maximum will be normally or very often reached.
It is our experience that foreign firms usually offer longer and more favourable terms of credit than British firms, and in many cases the facilities are offered with the help of the foreign Governments themselves. The Advisory Committee has set its face against abnormally long credits, and will do its utmost to keep the duration of the credits as short as possible, for the reasons the hon. Member has stated. In the Russian business which has been referred to, the Department had powers to give much longer credit than they gave, and since the National Government came into power no credits of more than 18 months have been given. I think it is wise that the Advisory Committee should use its discretion in this matter, and while I am grateful to the hon. Member, I hope the House will not hesitate to support the Department in giving them the power to grant credits up to 10 years should they be required. I must emphasise that the credits are not given for the benefit of the foreign borrower but of the British exporter, and the fact that the former may incidentally benefit is no reason for depriving the latter of the facilities without which it would very often be impossible for him to secure an order. I could give examples of the excellent contracts that have been secured because of the ability of the Department to guarantee occasional contracts of the long-term variety.

Sir JOHN SANDEMAN ALLEN: Are other countries giving this sort of credits?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: Yes. The schemes in other countries outbid us, and I want to say that I cannot undertake that this Department will go in for a credit competition with all the world. We want to handle our Department in a business-like manner, but we are faced with severe competition from other countries who are giving credits and greater facilities than we are.

11.7 p.m.

Mr. GURNEY BRAITHWAITE: I have been asked to say on behalf of important
interests in the City of Sheffield that I welcome the speech of the Minister, while agreeing with the general thesis of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Albery). There are important contracts pending at the moment with foreign countries which necessitate a considerable period of negotiation before they are in fact secured for this country. There are important competitive advantages enjoyed at the moment by foreign countries, but in view of the primary interests of employment for our people, which has already shown great improvement in Sheffield, we welcome the attitude of His Majesty's Government in resisting this Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: The Minister continually referred to what the Department wants. May I ask whether this Bill represents what the Minister and the Government want?

Lieut.-Colonel COLVILLE: I should make it clear that this is a Government. Bill and has the support of the Government.

Mr. ALBERY: In view of the explanation of the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 (Short title), ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — MARRIAGE ACT (1886) AND FOREIGN MARRIAGE ACT (1892) AMENDMENT BILL.

Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain Margesson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Twelve Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.